
Qass. 
Book 






ValksanpTalks 



BY 



WILLIAM HAWLFY ^MJTH 

AUTHOR OF 

*'The Evolution of Dodd'' 



CHICAGO 

A. Flanagan, Publisher. 






C:OP\RIGHT 

BY 

WILLIAM HAWLEY SMITH 




'• / tramp \ perpetii(^kSfQ]ir^^\}^i^ I ask jfoti to come walk 

with 

'' And each nul^^h^^^p^^^l^M^Q^^^ lipon a knoll, 
*' My right hand pmMtW^^^^^^pes of continents and the 

public road. 
'^ Not /, not any one else^ can travel that road for you, 
" You must travel it yourself ! 

''So, shoidder your bundle, dear frieyid, and I will mine, and 
let us hasteji forth, 
'f you tire, give me both burdens, and rest yotir hand on my 

arm. 
And in due time you shall repay the same service to me. 
For, after we start, we shall never lie by again! So, 
Come on! zvhoever you are, and let us travel together! 
Traveling with me, you shall find zvJiat never tires. 
The earth never tires! 

The earth is rude, silent, incompreJiensible at first ; 
Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first ; 
But be not discouraged. Keep on. TJiere are divine tilings 
there, well enveloped. 
" There are divine things there more beautiful than words ca?i 

tell ! 
'* Com.e on ! We must not stop Jiere ! 
^''However sweet these laid-up stores, Iiow ever convenient this 

dwelling, zve cannot remain Jiere. 
'"However sheltered this port and hozvever calm these zvaters, 

we must 7iot anclior Jiere. 
'^ However welcome the Jiospitality that surrounds us, we are 

permitted to receive it but a little witile. 
" Co7ne on! Yet take warning! 



6 WALKS AND TALKS. 

^^He traveling zvith me needs the best blood, thews, enduraiict 
* 'None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage a?ii 

health. 
" Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourselj 
*' Only those may come zvho come in szveet and determined 

bodies. 
" Come on! after the Great Companions.^ and to belong zvith 

them! 
•* They^ too^ are on the road — they are the szvift and majestic 

men — they are the greatest and grandest zvomen! 
** Co7ne on! to that zvhich is endless as it zvas beginningless. 
" To undergo much, tramp of days, rest of nights ; 
*' To see ?iothing, anyzvhere^ but that you may reach it and 

pass it; 
" To conceive of no time.^ Jiozuever distant, but that you may 

reach it and pass it; 
" To look up or dozvn no road but it stretches and zv aits for you 

— hozvever long^ it stretches and zv aits for you! 
*' Whoever you are, come forth! or man or zvoma?i, come forth! 
" You fnust not stay sleeping and dallying there iii the house ^ 

though you built it, or though it zvas built for you. 
" Come 071 ! the road is before us! 

'* // is safe — / have tried it — my ozvn feet have tried it zvell, 
"Come on ! 

" Comrade, I give you my hand! 
" I give you my love, more precious than money ; 
'^ I give you myself before all preaching or lazv ; 
" Will you give me yoiirself? Will you come and travel ivitJi me ; 
" Shall zve stick by each other pist as long as zve live f " 



INDEX. 

A Hunter's Philosophy 11 

Among the Aztecs 48 

An Open Book 39 

Born '• Short " 113 

"Dot" 93 

" Exams." 79 

Five Out of Thirty 157 

Geography and Music 2.1 

Half-Tones by the Million 177 

Honorificabilitudinity 186 

House Cleaning and History 202 

How He Knew It 122 

In An Industrial School ie2 

Incorrigibles 106 

In Institute Assembled 143 

Jones's Dream 153 



8 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Light, Air, Heat and Health 134 

Mexican Class-Room Work 62 

Photographs 166 

Rats 86 

" Specialty Business " 74 

Squeaks and Grease 194 

Thanksgiving 179 

The Bad Boy's Mother 102 

"The Only" , 71 

The Outset 9 

The Schools of Mexico 55 

Through Memory's Ways 20 

To You 30 

Two After-Dinner Speeches 218 

Whittling 126 



Walks and Talks. 



THE OUTSET. 



In that far distant era when our "entering class" 
stood up around Mary Montague's knees and learned our 
letters in the orthodox fashion of taking the alphabet ''in 
course," as everybody was expected to take everything in 
those days, I remember that that motherly old maid of a 
Yankee schoolmarm gave us some " supplementary work," 
as it would be called now, in the shape of little verses that 
we learned and recited in concert, our arms entwined around 
each other, and the whole little charmed circle swaying 
and weaving, back and forth, in even time, as we said the 
lines over in a sing-song way. And among these verses, 
thus learned and recited, there was one that began : 

"Whene're I take my walks abroad, 
How many s I see." 

I have forgotten just what the word WiS that fitted in 
where I have left a blank ; nor do I know why my memory 
should have failed to hold the particular monosyllable 
that evidently belongs in there, while clinging fast to all 
the rest of the lines ; but after nearly fifty years' acquaint- 
ance with this mental 'furniture of mine, I have quit trying 
to account for all its peculiarities — omissions, commis- 
sions and what not. 



10 WALKS AND TALKS. 

There was some word of one syllable that went there, 
and, as I look at it now, I find that it does not make so 
very much difference what it was, for any one of a hun- 
dred will do just as well as the one the original rhymer 
used. 

And, perhaps, after all, it is fully as well to let the 
blank stand, and permit each reader to fill it in " as 
occasion requires or opportunity offers," as our pastor 
says in prayer meeting. 

And so I am not going to worry my head about the 
original word, nor shall I care a straw if any delver after 
" primary forms " should hunt out this old fossil and send 
me the particular chip which is lacking in the specimen I 
have shown above ; for, put any one word in this niche 
and it narrows the same down to the particular thing 
which that one word stands for, and this leaves the lines 
far less true to the reality than they are with my blank 
holding up the heavy end of the iambus in this particular* 
line. So I leave it as it is, merely remarking that there 
are a good many other things in this old world that are 
similar to this. It does not pay to try to put them into 
their original forms, for they are better to us as we have 
them. Doubtless, it will not do to carry this argument 
too far ; but, run to a reasonable length, it works well and 
yields most blessed results. 

And so, as I was about to remark, " Whene're I take 
my walks abroad," — as I do every day and sometimes 
several times a day, — I see more things than any one 
word can stand for ; and when a man undertakes to put 
words in my mouth which shall tell what I am doing. I 
want those words to tell the whole story, or else to stand 
back and give me a chance to speak for myself. Or, per- 
haps, we can compromise the matter ; the rhymer may 
tell all of my story he can and I will do the rest. I will 



A HUNTER'S PHILOSOPHY. 11 

take these lines, just as I have quoted them, reserving 
only the blank for myself, to fill in as I choose ; and, just 
as the magic lantern man reserves for himself a little blank 
slot in his instrument into which he can slip any " slide " 
that he can get hold of, and always with a varied effect, 
so I will keep this blank open, and into it I will slip, from 
time to time, the things I see " when e'rc I take my 
walks abroad." 



A HUNTER'S PHILOSOPHY. 

I went out hunting a few days ago — took a walk 
abroad among sedge-grass and cockle-burs, down along 
the river bottom, where cranes are wont to congregate and 
croak, where mud-hens multiply and chuckle to each 
other in the secret places of swamp and fen, and where, 
occasionally — very occasionally — a duck disports itself, 
a half a mile or so from shore, out of range of any weapon, 
unless it be a howitzer or Gatling-gun. 

But we went hunting, just the same ; walked and 
talked as of yore, and did several things besides, things 
which thi^ hronicle has no particular business with, and 
which for that reason will be omitted from this truthful 
tale. 

There was one novelty about our trip this season ; we 
all took rifles instead of shotguns. The matter was settled 
at a meeting of the club, a month or so ago. At this 
meeting some discussion arose about skill in marksman- 
ship, and a very eloquent member made a telling speech 
about rifle-shooting as contra-distinguished from shotgun 
ditto. 



12 WALKS AND TALKS. 

The point he made was that the marksman who could 
bag game as the result of a single bullet sent after each 
particular bird, by that very act proved himself an artist 
with a fowling-piece ; while the man who used a shotgun, 
which belches forth a thousand leaden pellets at each dis- 
charge, and these scattered over a wide area, could never 
tell whether he really was a good shot, or whether his 
awkwardness in shooting all ways at once should be 
credited with his success as a sportsman. 

The talk on the subject ran high for a while ; and, 
finally, to settle the matter for one year, at least, it was 
agreed that we should all take rifles on our annual outing 
this season. 

So we all took rifles. 

My own gun was of the most recent make, manufac- 
tured in the East, and by a firm which has a most excel- 
lent and enviable reputation for making the best goods 
of the kind to be had in this or any other market. The 
maker's name was stamped upon the barrel as a guarantee 
that the article was genuine. 

And it was really a good gun. I think it was all it 
was ever recommended to be, and I have no word of fault 
to find with it as a gun ; nevertheless, ! shot with it for 
two days and never touched a feather ! 

Of course this was unpleasant ; for, formerly, on 
shotgun basis, I had always managed to bring in about a: 
average bagful of game ; and now to come in empty 
handed, two days in succession, was little less than dis 
grace. It seemed to establish the truth of my eloquen- 
friend's theory that my record as a sportsman depende. 
upon my promiscuous, rather than upon my definite an 
direct shooting — a conclusion which was by no mean 
flattering to my self-esteem, to say nothing of my vanit) 
But the third day I set out as before, and, as good Iuck 



A HUNTER'S PHILOSOPHY. 13 

would have it, I came upon a fine flock of ducks in a 
small pool, within easy range of a thick clump of brush 
which served me as a cover. The birds had not dis- 
covered my approach, and were disporting themselves 
with the utmost nonchalance as I made ready to shoot. 
I drew a bead on a large drake that sat perfectly still 
about fifty yards away, and fired ! 

If ever I was sure of game in my life it was just at 
the moment when I pulled the trigger of that gun. But 
the result was the same as before ; or, rather, worse, for 
this time the birds did not even do me the honor to fly. 
They only lifted their heads for a minute, as though a bit 
surprised, and then went to feeding again. 

To say that I was disgusted is to but feebly express 
my emotions as I lay hidden in that clump of bushes, and 
tor four successive times blazed away at those unconcerned 
and aggravating ducks, which now seemed to be growing 
accustomed to my fusilade, and rather to enjoy than to 
tear it. I blamed the gun and those who made it. I 
called myself names, and grew red in the face. I — 

But just as I was making ready for the fifth shot, and 
had declared to myself that I would smash my gun into 
smithereens if I did not kill that time, I heard a slight 
noise on my left, and turning, I saw the burly form of an 
old river hunter lying full length in the bushes not ten 
feet from me. He had heard my firing, and I think out 
Df sheer curiosity had crawled into my cover to see what 
t was all about. 

He was a typical man of his class, rough, bearded, 
anned to a copper color, and dressed in yellow jeans. He 
lad never belonged to a gun club, and I doubt if he at all 
:nevv the meaning of " Extra Dry." I am quite sure he 
ould not have passed a written examination on " Sports- 
aanship from an Esthetic Point of View," especially if 



14 WALKS AND TALKS. 

the professor in our club had had the privilege of pre- 
paring the questions ; but the denoument showed that he 
knew a thing or two, for all that 

I have said that I saw him, etc. Evidently he had 
been in his present position for some time, and had wit- 
nessed my former endeavors and failures, for as soon as I 
caught his eye he said, under his oreath : 

** You d — n fool, lower your hindsight I Hdnt you got 
sense enough to see that you are shootin over 'em every time ! " 

I '* lowered my hind-sight," and we had ducks for 
supper cut of my bag that night 



I was sitting on the platform at an educational gather- 
ing, not long ago, and the professor in charge was dic- 
tating some very excellent words to the teachers there 
assembled, reading from a book, a few words at a time, 
the teachers writing as he read, thus : 

"It should be the aim of education — to effect the 
triune result — etc., etc." 

There were about a hundred teachers writing, and 
when the reader pronounced the word " triune," I think 
at least ninety of the writers looked up for an instant and 
scowled inquiringly, then dropped their eyes and hurried 
on with their notations. The reader made no pause at 
this demonstration — took no notice of it, in fact, but went 
on dictating, a few words at a time, to the end of the some- 
what long and stilted, not to say slightly high-flown sen- 
tence, his listeners writing as best they could. 

The exercise was continued for about fifteen minutes, 
and among the sentences dictated occurred the words, 
"apperception," "conjunctivity," "curricula," "adum- 
bration/' ar^t^ "' ':z-N more of about the same size and 
weight. And every time one of these words was shot into 



A HUNTER'S PHILOSOPHY. 15 

that audience, so to speak, there was the same lifting of 
heads, inquiring elevation of eyebrows, scowl, and return 
to writing on the part of about nine out of every ten of 
those who were doing their best to set down what the 
reader of the book was saying. 

When all was over, I asked the professor if he would 
call on some one who had been writing to read what he or 
she had written. He readily consented, and at once asked 
a very bright-looking girl, of about twenty, who sat just 
before him, to stand and read her notes. She blushed and 
looked down, hesitatingly, and finally said : 

" I can't do it." 

"Why not?" said the professor. 

*• I haven't got it all written down," replied the girl. 

"Did I read too fast?" said the professor. 

" No, I guess not," said the girl. 

"Well, then, what's the matter?" said the professor. 

The girl hesitated and blushed still deeper, while 
there was an anxious look on nearly every face in the 
room. 

It was at this point that I begged for a word, and 
asked the young lady if she would read as far as she had 
written, be the same more or less. She was a brave girl 
( it "takes genuine bravery, and a good deal of it, to do 
what I asked her to do, the circumstances being what 
they were ) and so, with a resolute, not to say half des- 
perate motion, she rose and read: 

" It should be the aim of education to effect the " 

She stopped, and I said: 

"Well?" 

"I didn't understand the next word," she said. 

" How many in the room did understand the next 
word, and have it written down?" I asked. 



16 WALKS AND TALKS. 

There was a pause; then some two or three hands 
went up promptly and perhaps half a dozen timidly, but 
the ninety held their peace. 

"Will all who did not get the word written down 
please to stand? " I asked. " Come! It's no disgrace to 
say we don't know when we don't know," I added. 

And then there was a sound as of a rushing mighty 
wind, and the ninety arose, en masse. 

The professor looked puzzled. He was a clever gen- 
tleman, and a most thorough scholar, and he read excep- 
tionally well, in a clear, full voice, pronouncing every 
word distinctly, and how it was that all these people had 
missed this word of two syllables was more than he could 
comprehend. 

And then I said to a young man who stood in front: 
"What was the matter with the word that you did not get 
it?" And he replied: " I don't think I ever heard it be- 
fore! " Whereupon, these words have been spoken, eighty- 
nine pairs of eyes, or thereabouts, looked into mine and 
said as plain as eyes can say anything, "That's just it!" 

I confess that I was a good deal surprised at this 
generous and wholesale confession on the part of these 
teachers, for the word in question had hardly struck me 
as being so very unusual and the people before me were 
by no means dull or dumb. On the contrary, they were 
more than averagely bright Nevertheless, the great fact 
remained that the word "triune" was a stranger to their 
eyes and ears thus far! 

Not to prolong the story, the professor took the cue 
and proceeded with a still further reading of the notes 
taken from his reading only to find "apperception," 
"conjunctivity," "curricula," " adumbration," and several 
more of similar sort among the things that were not. 

At dinner, just before this exercise, I had told the 



A HUNTER'S PHILOSOPHY. 17 

professor my hunting experience, narrated above, nnd 
after he had staggered along with this notes-reading for 
about ten minutes, and had found out what a thing of 
shreds and patches it was in reality, when compared with 
what he had expected it to be, he turned to me and said, 
under his breath. 

'' It looks a good deal as though I had better lower my 
kind sight.'' 

And I thiuK he was right about it too. 

The fact is, it is a common fault to shoot over: — 

"Agitate the water, Michael," said a clergyman to 
an Irishman who was cleaning out his well. 

" An' phat the divil is that? " said Mike. 

*^Stir it up," said the man at the windlass, and it was 
done! 

I have a friend who is the most brilliant scholar of 
my acquaintance, but he delights in polysyllables, and his 
language is of the strictly classical sort. The maid-of-all- 
work in his kitchen is a Swede, who, while she is an ex- 
cellent cook, speaks English only on the installment plan, 
with very limited installments at that. My friend tried 
to tell her something to do, the other day, and after sev- 
eral most eloquent efforts he gave up in despair. He 
hunted up his wife (a very sensible and plain spoken 
woman, she is), and told her that he "could not make 
hat stupid girl understand." (He reads Greek, Latin, 
■^rench, German and Italian.). The good woman listened 
o his tale of woe, and then went and told the girl what 
:o do, using simple words that were easily understood. 
When she came back she remarked to her husband: 
^My dear, if you would be less Johnsonese you would be 
.ar more understandable." 



18 JVALKS AND TALKS. 

/ 

And as he loves peace and quiet at home he at once 

proceeded to ** lower his hind sight." 

And there is that other acquaintance of mine, who 
told me that not long ago he sat down to write a lecture, 
and how he covered six full pages with a most brilliant 
introduction, all filled with " hyperbole, metaphor, met- 
tonomy, prosody peia, superbaton, cattychraysis, metty- 
lipsis, and hustheron-protheron," as Father Tom has it. 
Having written so much, he took it down and read it tc 
his wife. And s/ie, toO, is a most sensible woman. (These 
women, God bless them! How could we get on withoul 
them?) She heard him through, and then said, quietly 
•*Oh, Charles, come off the perch! " 

And to his credit be it said, he did as he was told. 

But 1 think it is in the school-room, more than any 
where else, that we "shoot over," and so ought to " lowe; 
the hind sights" of our pedagogical guns, as it were. In 
deed I am certain that any teaclier will be surprised, no 
to say appalled, if he or she will carefully watch th< 
effect, or rather the lack of effect, that their words hav( 
upon pupils. The young people hear what we say, per 
haps so far as the material ear is concerned, but they d( 
not understand and we are to blame because they do not 

We talk of predicate-nominatives and substantiv- 
phrases to ten and twelve-year-olds, in the grammar class 
and these long-range missiles fly yards and yards ove; 
and beyond the game they are aimed at! We fire involu 
tion and permutation into droves of eighth-graders. They 
"duck their heads " for a minute, and then go on chew 
ing gum just as though nothing had happened, careles 
alike of ourselves and of the noises we make. 

And this is the really pitiful, not to say tragic, thin 
about it all. Our young people get into the habit of listenin 
to words that make no impression upon them, and the resu 



A HUNTERS PHILOSOPHY. 19 

is that they very soon get careless, especially upon all 
educational matters. Or, perhaps I should say they get 
discouraged. 

No one likes to be continually listening to what he 
does not understand, and if long compelled to do so, he 
will either be bored beyond endurance, or involuntarily 
and unwittingly get a poor opinion of his ability to un- 
derstand and comprehend what it is supposed he ought 
to learn about. 

And if a pupil gets in the way of thinking that he is 
not going to understand, the chances are many to one 
that he will not understand; and w^hen he has reached 
that point, the limit of educational growth, in that direc- 
tion, is close at hand. 

The true test of really great things is their simplicity. 
They are so easily understood by everybody. In that 
v/onderful art gallery at the World's Fair, it was the 
simple pictures that drew the crowds, the ones that all 
understood, and crowded upon each other to look at. 
"Breaking Family Ties," '' Preparing for the Wedding," 
"The Alarm," '^The Reply," and a thousand more that 
could be named — these are the great works of art, and 
;ey are simple and as easily understood as they are 
comparable as artistic productions. 

And the same is true in other lines of art. It is now 
V- ght years since Mr. Denman Thompson brought out 
tnat simplest of all dramas, "The Old Homestead," but 
be is still playing it to crowded and ever delighted audi- 
ences. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is simplicity itself in plot, 
execution, and language, but a world has read it, with 
veeping eyes, and knows the story by heart. 

It is further recorded of the Master of us all that 
"the common people heard him gladly." 

How are you shooting beloved? 



20 . WALKS AND TALKS. 



THROUGH MEMORY'S WAYS. 

While I was waiting my turn at the bank, the other 
day, I overheard the following conversation between the 
cashier and a customer who stood the third, man ahead of 
me, his nose almost against the little brass-grated win- 
dow, as he spoke: 

Customer — "Do you remember the number of that 
draft on Chicago which you gave me one day last week?" 

Cashier — "No, sir, I don't. It is a rule of this bank 
to remember 7tothing. But if you can tell me the date on 
which you got the draft, I can readily find the number for 
you." ' 

Whereupon, the date being given by the customer 
aforesaid, it was the work of but an instant for the cashier 
to turn to the record of drafts issued on that day, and there 
find the desired information. 

Shortly afterwards I passed a leading merchant of 
the city in conversation with a gentleman with whom he 
evidently had the most amicable of business relations, 
and this is what I heard him say, as I went along: 

'* No, don't ask me to remember your order, but go 
down to the store and leave a memorandum of what you 
want, and then you arc sure to get it, But if I should 
try to remember it for you, the chances arc a hundred to 
one that you wouldn't see the goods for six months." 

And when I went to the sash factory, and ordered a 
sash made to fit our north cellar window (we are going to 
have double sash in that window this winter, sure. We 
have tlioiight for the last five years that we would fix it 
that way, but, somehow, have always forgotten it till now. 



THROUGH MEM0BT8 WAYS. 21 

But wife made a memorandum about it, one day last week, 
and put the same where I couldn't help seeing it, and so 
the sash is ordered.) I say, when I told the sash man 
what I wanted, he said, "Make a memprandum, please, of 
just the size you want, and there will be no mistake in 
filling your order." 

And so it was that, when I went to the tailor for a 
suit of clothes, he measured me up one side and down the 
other, as smart as you please, calling out the inches and 
fractions of an inch, of each measurement in a good round 
tone, while his clerk wrote all these numbers down in a 
book, where they are, even unto this day, showing just 
what manner of man I am, so far as size and shape are 
concerned, beyond all question or cavil. 

We lost some freight, some time since, and asked the 
railroad company to look it up for us. So they sent out 
a "tracer" for the goods — that is, a letter, that should fol- 
low along the same route that the goods were supposed 
to have traveled. This letter went, first, to the freight 
of^ce from which the goods were originally shipped. 
The agent there referred to his record regarding this par- 
ticular package of merchandise. He found that he had 
received it from the transfer company, and had billed it 
Dut, on a certain train, to a certain station where it was to 
:)e transferred to another line of road. That cleared his 
)kirts. Then he wrote a letter to the agent at the station 
vhere the package was to have been transferred, described 
.he goods, told what train they were shipped on, and 
isked him to show up what he knew about them. This 
gent referred to his record, found out what disposition he 
had made of the package, and so on ; till, finally, the 
goods were found and laid down at their proper desti- 
nation. 

I saw a drug clerk fill out a prescription, not long ago 



22 WALKS AND TALKS. 

and I noticed that he followed the doctor's written direc^ 
tions, explicitly; and when he had the mixture com- 
pounded, he filed the original prescription, which was 
numbered to correspond with the label on the bottle, on 
a hook, where if could be referred to, years hence, if 
need be. 

And when I went to my dentist with a tooth which was 
giving me trouble, and which I assured him he had filled 
some years before, he astonished me by turning to a 
record of the work he had done for me for the past ten 
years, and, to use the vernacular, this particular tooth 
"wasn't in it" at all. The simple truth was that I was 
mistaken, and had forgotten that it was a dentist a thou- 
sand miles from here who filled the molar that was now 
giving offense. 

Once I was in the office of the Youth's Companion and 
the manager kindly showed me how they handle their 
voluminous mail (thousands of letters a day), with so 
much ease and accuracy. Thus, the letters are all opened 
by a clerk whose particular business is to do just this 
work. He makes a hasty glance at the contents of each 
letter, and long practice has enabled him to determine 
unerringly, and with great despatch, the proper depart- 
ment to which each one should be referred. This done, 
he puts his stamp upon the document, showing that it 
has been through his hands and referred, and deposits it 
in some one of several baskets that are ranged about him, 
each basket holding letters for a sepa' ate department. 
The contents of these baskets are carried to their several de- 
partments and there disposed of by the various clerks in 
those departments. Every clerk who has anything 
whatever to do with any letter that comes into his or 
her hands piits his mark and memorazidnin on the same, 
for future reference, if such should ever be required. 



THBOUGH MEM0BT8 WAYS, 23 

When all is done, the letter is filed where it can readily 
be referred to, and on its blank spaces there is a writ- 
ten record of every one's hands it has passed through, 
and just what each one has done. If there is ever 
any trouble, if a mistake has been made, anywhere, 
it is an easy matter to trace the whole business up, 
and find out just who it was that made the error, 
and what the error was that was made. All such errors 
are charged up to the clerks who make them, and 
on this record clerks are promoted or deposed. Those 
who make few mistakes go up; those who blunder 
go down — and out, if the same thing happens more than 
a fixed number of times. 

Now what I started out to say was, that in all these 
instances that I have cited, there isn't as much memory 
zvork, all put together, as is given the average pupil in our 
public schools any half day in the year. In a word, in the 
business world it is a fundamental principle not to try to 
remember anything. And this means, I take it, that ex- 
periefice has demonstrated the fact that the memory is such a 
treacherous faculty that it is not at all to be relied tiponfor 
exact data regarding the things that are past. 

And yet, to what infinite lengths of labor do our 
schools and colleges go to "develop the memory." The 
question I wish to raise is, is the game worth the candle? 
Is this faculty of the human mind of enough importance 
to have three-fourths of all the time spent in school de- 
voted to its "development"? And, more than all, does 
the titanic strain that is put upon the memory by all our 
school courses — does this tend to strengthen that faculty; 
or, rather, does it not tend to deplete it? To a considera- 
tion of this question, "let facts be submitted to a candid 
world." ■ 

And to get such submission of facts, oh my dear 



24 WALKS AND TALKS. 

reader, all you have to do is to get inside of yourself,, and 
take a memory-invoice of what stock of that sort you 
have on hand at this day and date. That will tell the 
story, so far as you are concerned; and to you, that is 
better than the testimony of ten thousand other folks. 
So get at it now, and see how it comes out in your case. 

And, first, was the game worth the candle, so far as 
you are concerned? Did you get net results from burn- 
ing the midnight oil, while 3^ou strove to Tuemorize the 
area and population of each state in the union, to say 
nothing of the rivers, lakes, mountains, towns, cities, and 
what not; from getting lists of dates so that you could 
say them backwards or forwards or "skipping around;" 
from learning atomic weights and combining numbers so 
that you could say them without the book ; from getting 
all the grammar rules so that you could repeat them, 
every one, in order ; or from saying over punctuation 
rules, which you never did see any sense in, and never 
could apply — I say, out of all this monstrous mass of 
memory work that you did in school, have you ever got 
enough to pay you for all the time and trouble you went 
to, to get good enough marks out of it all to graduate on ? 
How is it ? 

I have figured the thing through, in my own case, and 
have "got the answer." I won't ask you to memorize it, 
but I will write it down, right here, where you can refer to 
it any time you want to. And this ^t is : // did not 
pay me. 

And I do not say this unadvisedly. Look at it in any 
way I may, the result is the same. If 1 say, ** How much 
of this matter, that I strove so hard to memorize while ' 
student in school, have I had occasion to use since I lei": 
school ?" I am appalled at the paucity of opportunit' 
for the utilization of what I worked so diligently to 



THROUGH MEMORT 8 WAYS. 25 

And if I ask, " How much of what I could then recite 
without the book do I still hold in my memory ?" I am 
startled at the percentage of loss. 

Why, I cannot now give the area or population of a 
single state in the Union, though I learned them all, 
thoroughly, twenty-five years ago. And as for historic 
dates, atomic weights, punctuation rules, and the whole 
line of similar things that I sat up, night after night, to 
learn, they are a blank to me now — an utter blank. 

But what do I care for that ? There is a cyclopedia 
over there on the shelf (I can almost reach it without 
getting out of my chair, as I write), and it holds all these 
things without an effort — keeps them ready and waiting 
for me, whenever I have occasion to use them. And so, 
if I want to know the area of New York, or the popu- 
lation of California, all I have to do is to turn to the page, 
and, there you are! Right, too. No guess-work. No " I 
think it is," or " as I remember it." Nothing of that 
sort, but good, honest figures, that time will not blot out 
or get mixed up. 

And there is the chemistry over there, and here are 
the histories (oh, how easy it is for them to hold those 
dates, thousands of them ; and what delight it is to me to 
go and find them, just right, when I want them). And 
the grammar and punctuation book— though, to be honest, 
I never do refer to that. I learned to punctuate after I 
got out of school; in such an easy way, too, and wholly 
without that book. I was talking, one evening, with a 
friend, and he said : " The way to learn to punctuate is 
to punctuate." " But," I said, " I can't. I don't know 
how. I studied the art for six months, in school ; but, 
somehow, I can't do anything at it." " Well," said he, 
"I will tell you how to learn to punctuate. Notice, care- 
fully, how the articles you read in any good magazine, or 



26 WALKS AND TALKS. 

metropolitan newspaper, are punctuated, and stop your 
reading every once in a while, and ask yourself why any 
given sentence is punctuated as it is, and you will be sur- 
prised to find how soon you will learn to punctuate well." 

And I did as he told me, and I found it to be even as 
he had said. And I see no good reason why my teacher 
in punctuation could not have used a sensible method of 
this sort, and taught me punctuation so that I could punc- 
tuate, instead of spending the time trying to develope my 
memory by making me learn punctuation rules and ex- 
ceptions — largely exceptions — that I didn't understand 
and never could apply ! So, I never refer to the punc- 
tuation-book. 

But I do refer to nearly all the other books in my 
library, as I have need. Occasionally I turn the pages of 
some old school book, for reference, but I am sure I could 
do it equally well now, even if I had not been forced to 
memorize the zuhole volume when a student. 

No ! to my mind our schools are all wrong in giving 
their pupils so much memory work, and I am certain that 
their so doing docs not strengthen the memory nor culti- 
vate the mind. On the other hand, I am convinced that 
it debilitates the mnemonic faculty and tends to stupify 
the intellect. 

It is a well recognized principle in physiology that if 
you overtax an organ you thereby weaken it. We over- 
burden the memories of our pupils, and thereby weaken 
that faculty in them. We give them such memory-loads 
to carry that they cannot stand up under them, and so 
they throw them off at the very first chance they can get. 
All they try to do is to hold on to the matter until they 
can pass an examination in it, and then they let it all slip; 
as, surely, they are obliged to do, to make room for a new 
load. And so it is that ilicy f.iUinto the habit of forgetting 



THROUGH MEMOBTS WAYS. 27 

rather than remembering — an outcome which is the very 
reverse of what was promised — and paid for ! 

Just here I got to wondering how it happens that our 
schools have fallen into such abnormal ways of teaching, 
and here is what has come to me about it. I wonder if 
this predominance of memory-work in our schools is not 
a direct descendent from the methods used in the days 
whe?i there zvere no books ! In those times the only way in 
which the knowledge of one could be made available by 
another was for that other to remember it. The only way 
for the pupil to acquire the knowledge which the teacher 
had to impart was to commit it to memory, and the only 
way the teacher could know that his pupil had acquired 
what ne had imparted was to test his memory about it. 

And this is how '' exams T came into being. They 
were all right and proper in their time, and, as such, they 
took rank and place in an educational system. But when 
the era of books came, they became antiquated methosls, 
and would long ago have been dropped, but for the ]i ^r- 
sistence of habit. What a powerful force habit is ! 

Well, if these things are so (and I see no good rea, on 
to doubt them), it is perfectly clear that we ought tc let 
up, greatly, on the memory work that is now doing in our 
schools. 

"But," some one says, "didn't Edward Everett get 
so that he could read a newspaper through, and then fold 
it up and recite every word that it contained ? and could 
not Prof. Watson recite a full table of logarithms, true to 
six places, without ever referring to a book ? etc., and so 
on to the end of the chapter. Yes, verily, these men 
could do these things; and "Uncle Dick" Oglesby can, 
to this day, call by his first name every man in the one 
hundred and two counties in Illinois that he has ever been 
introduced to ; and I know a man who can charm birds, 



28 WALKS AND TALKS. 

and nearly all other animals — make them do almost any- 
thing he wishes to have them do ; and there is an old 
hunter up the river who will shoot a duck on the wing, 
nine times out of ten, and never bring his gun to his 
shoulder — just hold it against his side, and, without 
taking sight at all, blaze away and down his game every 
time ; and Bishop VVhatley, as a boy of six, could work 
mathematical problems, mentally, in a few minutes, that 
it would take his father some hours to figure out, though 
the old gentleman was himself apt at figures ; and Blind 
Tom can hear a piece of music once, and play it over 
exactly ; and John L. Sullivan can strike a blow with his 
fist, that will fell an ox ; and Jay Gould made a $100,000,- 
000, because he had it in him to do just that. 

But, forsooth, because these things are so it does not 
follow that methods should be introduced into our public 
schools whose purpose it should be to enable every pupil 
to call by his first name every man he might ever be intro- 
duced to ; or to tame birds, lions and all other wild fowl ; 
or to shoot without taking sight ; or to mentally acquire 
a product of twenty places ; or to strike with the fist like 
a sledge-hammer ; or to make ;^ioo,ooo,ooo out of nothing 
but manipulation ! 

Now, the fact is that the miraculous nie^nory feats of 
Mr. Everett and Mr. Webster and Mr. Gladstone and ail 
of their kind, that have been held up for our emulation 
and imitation, are phenomenal. These men did these 
wonderful things because they were born with special gifts 
in that line, and it is just as nonsensical to talk about 
making every boy and girl in our schools work toward the 
attainment of these achievements as it would be to try to 
make them all develop heads of the size of lAx, Webster's, 
or play like Blind Tom, or strike like Sullivan. And yet 
this memory training is upheld because these memory 



THROUGH MEM GET 8 WAYS 29 

giants did these wonderful things. It is time this delusion 
was abandoned. 

Because, the truth is that memory is not such an im- 
portant faculty of the mind that it should receive the great bidk 
of all the attention that is given to me?ital training in our 
schools. And yet it does so receive, the country over, to- 
day. To be plain about it, this memory of ours, however 
drilled, is one of our most treacherous mental possessions. 
No business man ever relies on it in any matter where 
absolute accuracy is required. In our courts, the testi- 
mony of witnesses who mean to tell the truth and who do 
their best to do so, but who fail to tell things as they really 
occurred, because their memory has played them false, 
shows how unreliable this mental faculty is. Ask any 
lawyer or judge, and he will tell you all about it ; or, prob- 
ably, you know well enough about it yourself. I do. 

The other day I was on the witness-stand, and was 
asked if I had not, about three years before, received a 
certain letter from one of the parties to the suit. My im- 
pulse was to testify that I never received any such letter, 
or any letter whatever, from the person in question ; but, 
to make the matter sure, I said that I had no recollection 
of ever receiving any letter from the party ; but, I added, 
" if I ever did receive such a letter it would be on file in my 
office." When I came off the stand, the judge told me 
that I might go and look for that letter, since, if it were 
written, as claimed, it would be important evidence. I 
went and looked for it, and found it, with my own indorse- 
ment on it of having answered it myself in the regular 
course of business ! And yet I had no recollection what- 
ever of the entire transaction. 

And I know that my experience in this is not unique. 
V^ou know it is "common," do you not ? And because it 
is so, because memory is such a tricky part of our mental 



30 WALKS AND TALKS. 

furniture, I do not believe that it is wise to spend three- 
fourths of all the time in our schools in trying to " cram " 
i?t- We can use the time better in some other way. 
Don't you think so ? 

P. S. — After I had this chapter written I read it to a 
teacher, a friend of mine, and he said : "You are fighting 
a man of straw. They don't teach now-a-days as they 
did when you went to school." I said nothing, but as in 
the next six days I had the opportunity of being in as 
many different towns, I took the liberty of dropping into 
a couple of schools in each town to sec how they taught 
school t/ie^r. Then I came home and copied out the 
paper, just as I had written it, only I underscored some 
words that I had not thought it necessary to emphasize 
when I wrote the first copy. 



TO YOU 



On looking over the printed edition of the foregoing 
chapter I find that I made a capital blunder in the manu- 
script for the same — an error that I want to rectify here as 
far as I can. The last sentence in the article proper — the 
one that comes just before the " P. S." is a question, and 
it reads, *' Don't you think so?" That is the way I wrote 
it, and as a most natural consequence, that is the way it 
was printed. Nevertheless, as it stands, it does not begin 
to utter what I wanted it to say, nor express what I meant 
to put into it. 

What I ought to have done was to have underscored 
the word "you" in my copy, so that the printed edition 
would have read "Don't jjw/ think so?" That would 
have put a point upon all that had gone before, and per- 
haps made it penetrate at least one or two individual souls ^ 



TO YOU. 31 

personally, pricking them up to veritable action in the 
premises; whereas, leaving the thing general, as I did, to 
apply to anybody or everybody (or more probably ;z^(^^^) 
the whole force of all I had said stands a good chance of 
coming to nothing — going out into empty space, and van- 
ishing into glittering generalities. 

Because, you see, it is only as what is written or said 
strikes jj/^z/, in especial, and takes hold of yo2i, and leads 
you to action, that it is worth while writing or saying any- 
thing at all. I mean really worth while. Of course, one 
may write merely for the sake of making marks on paper, 
or talk merely for the sake of wagging one's tongue, or 
one may read merely to kill time; but none of these 
things are really worth while, according to my way of 
thinking. Who is it that says, "I do not write these 
things for a dollar, nor to fill in the time while I wait for 
a boat?" Aye, truly! Neither does any man or woman 
who has come to realize that life is really worth living! 

And yet we are all so prone to let the things that 
would fain hit us hard, glance off, and be shivered into a 
million fragments of generalities, rather than suffer them 
to be focused to a needle-point fineness, and stick into 
our souls individually, and rankle there, piercin^f even to 
the dividing asunder of the joints and of the marrow, of 
the soul and of the body, if need be; goading us to action, 
whether we wish it or no; filling us with unrest until we 
do what the stern behest tells us we ought to do! 

I remember an old deacon in the church into which 
I was born, who said one evening at church meeting, when 
the brethren were discussing the merits and demerits of 
a new minister they were about to " call," and some one 
intimated that his sermons were not practical — that this 
old worthy remarked that he did not know or care a fig 
whether the sermons were practical or not; that he 



32 WALKS AND TALKS. 

didn't think he should know a practical sermon if he ever 
heard one; that he liked a sermon as he liked a meal of 
victuals — all he asked of it was that it should go in one 
ear and out the other, and be good while it was going. 

He was a notorious old skinflint, one who would de- 
vour a widow's house with no more apparent feeling than 
as if he were killing a fly. Yet, he heard the Word, every 
Sunday; but there was wo personality in it for him, and the 
messages of truth and grace that fell from the preacher's 
lips simply " went in at one ear and came out at the other," 
so far as he was concerned, and they were "good while 
they were going" because they onl}^ applied to somebody 
else. 

I lost sight of the old fellow when I was a mere boy, 
and I do not know what finally became of him, but I have 
often thought what a rattling of dry bones there must 
have been in his case, if ever he came to a place where 
someone pointed a finger straight at him, and said, "Thou 
art the man," so that it stuck clear through him and came 
out on the other side. 

And yet I would have no harsh word for this rigid 
old Puritan, for we are all more or less apt to be like him, 
in that we are very willing to let the great lessons of life 
for us go by, while we shy along on the other side of the 
road. Nevertheless, the things that count for any of us, 
and the only things that really count, are those that we 
take personally to ourselves, and that sink so deep into 
us that they move us this way or that, for good or for ill, 
as the case may be. 

And so it is that I am anxious that what I write shall 
hit you, my dear reader, and move you to action, one 
way or the other. Not that I expect, or even hope that you 
will agree with me in all, or perhaps in any part, of what 
I say. I should be the veriest goose, not to say fool, to 



TO YOU, 33 

ink such a result possible. And, indeed, for this I have 
) care whatever. 

Of course, if what I have to say strikes you as true, and, 
doing-, stirs you up to action on the lines of what seems to 
' to be right, then I am indeed glad. But if, reading any 
)rds of mine, your soul says, " No, he is wrong there, 
d I know it, for I have worked the thing through on my 
vn account, and I am as certain as I am that I am alive 
at he is in error " — if your soul says that to you, and you 
:t accordingly, and rise up in the might of truth and de- 
iolish every word that I have ever written — why then, so 
long as you have the ^;^^'f^,_^l ^T^^adlL ^ thank you, from 
the bottom of rn5||^8ea|;0|f cb bBi^SS^tlkl my error, and 
count you the ^ei^^a^dAi|^!|J^|jjhful/frf»ad I ever had. 
But to hdcw^my words fall flat onyoii, tdlhave to real- 
ize that, for jvA, they rneij^ ^^iiiiWine eyaknd out at the 
other, and arlLgood while they are gdfc^JTthis is worm- 
wood to me. ^^^laLiihSifi^U^M^'^ 

And so I wish I rSQ"#?Sl5i{-%ie question originally, 
*'Dontj/02i think so?" 

All of which leads me to the reflection that no man 

or woman in all this world amounts to much till he or she 

mes to realize what an important part of creation they, 

:h one, personally y are, viewed from their own individual 

ndpoint. And this, not in any offensively egotistical 

y, but merely as a matter of fact that arises from the 

y nature of things, in that every living human being is 

immortal soul, and as infinite as eternal! 

And so it is that, so far as you are concerned, no mat- 

wlio you are: 

" You are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid. 
" You are he or she for whom t^he sun and moon hang- in the sky. 
'* Whoever you are, motion and reflection are especially ioxyou. 
3 



f^ 34 WALKS AND TALKS. 

" Whoever you are, the divine ship, this wondrous world ot 6urs, 
sails the divine sea especially ioryou. 

'* For none more than yo:( are the present and the past. 

" And for none more tha.n you is immortality. 

" Each man to himself, and each woman to herself, is the word 
^ of the past and present, and the word of immortality. 

" No one can acquire for another — not one! 

•' No one can grow for another — not one! 

" The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him. 

•' The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him. 

'* The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him. 

*' The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him, 

" The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him. 

" The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — it can- 
not fail. 

"The oration is to the orator, and the acting to the actot and 
actress, not to the audience. 

" And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his 
own, or the indications of his own. 

" I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who 
shall be complete! 

" I swear the earth remains broken and jagged only to him or 
her who remains broken and jagged!" 

So says the latest prophet of the years, and tru/j/ he 
says it. One doesn't realize it at first flush. It is so great, 
so mighty, that j^o/^ and /can hardly understand that w^ 
are the ones, in particular, that the old man is talking 
about. And yet, so it is, and weknow it, when we come to 
think about it. Surely, so far as I am concerned, the sun 
and moon hang in the sky for me especially. Drop me 
out of the account, and what odds is it to me whether 
there be any sun, moon, or whatsoever? And so on, to 
the end of all the old poet's words claim for us. 

Now, il \9 this view of humanity that makes life worth 
living, for me. It is this infinite individuality and personality 
that is in you and in -ine, and in everybody (white, black, 
brown, or what you will), and which makes us all equals 



TO YOU, 35 

on the great plane of spiritual being — it is this thing that 
makes it seem worth while for me, or for you, or for any- 
body to live at all, and to labor and strive to move our- 
selves and the rest of the brethren on and up. It is this 
that makes me willing to sit down and write to you, and 
that will make it worth while for yozc to read what I write, 
if I say anything worth reading at all. 

And, above all, it is this view of things that makes 
the public school worth while, and that puts the teacher's 
profession on the very topmost round of the ladder of 
human employments. And especially is this so in this 
great American democracy of ours, where we have under- 
taken to make the total average of humanity so high that 
to its hands can be safely entrusted the government of 
this mighty people,' the settlement of such gigantic ques- 
tions as time has never before produced, the development 
of a civilization that shall make all the former attainments 
of the nations of the earth sink into insignificance by way 
of contrast. 

This is what we have undertaken to do, and if the 
attempt ever succeeds, it must be because the public 
schools make such success possible. 

But if these schools ever perform the Herculean task 
that is demanded of them, it will be because they so adapt 
themselves to the million-and-one personalities of the chil- 
dren of this nation, that they enable them to grow and 
develop as God meant they should grow and develop, 
each and all, everyone just as free to think and act as yoii 
are — not to think and act as yoii do, but as each one per- 
sonally elects, after his own kind. 

And, if this thing is ever done, it \?, you who have got 
to do it, so far as yo2i are concerned ; it is /, it is everybody^ 
but each one in particular. 

And so the questions that force themselves upon you 



36 WALKS AND TALKS. 

and upon me are, what can we do ? How can we do it ? 
And, above all, will we do something, right now ? 

Looking at the present status of the public schools, 
you know and /know that they are not now doing all that 
they should do, all that the requirements of the hour 
demand that they should do. We know that we do not 
hold the great bulk of the childreii of the common people in these 
schools but a small percentage oftlie time that these same chil- 
dreii ought to be under careful discipline a?td training. How 
can we hold these pupils longer, and train them as they 
ought to be trained ? Long years of the most careful ex- 
periment have proved that we cannot do it as our schools 
are now- fashioned, their curricula being what they now 
are. The question is, how can we do jt ? 

Or, what is far more to the point, how can you do it, 
beloved ? There's the rub. It is little or no odds to you 
and yours what the others do ; the item that should 
engage all your soul is, what can / do ? And what I beg 
for is, that yoti do something toward the solution of this 
momentous question in the special field in which you are 
working. I don't ask or urge you to do, cr to try, any- 
thing radical. I beseech you not to try to solve the whole 
problem for the whole nation at one fell swoop. I beg of 
you not to seek for any wholesale or patent process that 
can be applied to all the schools»in the country and instant 
relief be guaranteed to follow. From all these weaknesses 
of the flesh and wiles of the devil, good Lord deliver you 
— ■ and us. But this ] do suggest, that, things being as 
they are, you do what you can to better the situation in 
your immediate field of labor. Do that, in your own way, 
and great shall be your reward. 

Anent which, a letter has just this minute reached me, 
just as I wrote the last sentence in the last paragraph. It 
comes from a teacher in Kansas, and a portion of it reads 



TO YOlh 37 

thus : " We teachers out here are struggling for more 
light on these great educational issues of the day. We 
are approaching these momentous problems cautiously, 
though fearlessly, and are bound to get at the true inward- 
ness of them, so far as it is in our power to do so. We 
may get great knots of egotism and self-confidence and 
fossilized adherence to antiquated ideas knocked off from 
our hide-bound anatomies; but, if so, we will gather 
together what there is left of ourselves, and push forward 
to grander and better things." 

There ! That is the idea ! It is just such a spirit as 
this that will break holes through all obscurities and let 
the light in, somehow. There will be mistakes made, of 
course there will ; but such a steadfast purpose as the 
above words indicate cannot fail of yielding great results 
as time goes on. Don't yoti think so ? 

One more remark and I am done with this theme. 
Don't you see how all this means that yoti have got to be 
the final judge as to what it is best to do under the present 
circumstances ? You may advise, and counsel, and read, 
and look up authorities, and watch what other people do, 
and all that; but if you ever do anything worth while for 
the cause, it will be in your oiv7i way — something that you 
have thought out yourself and are willing to try, because 
you believe there is something in it. 

It will be in vain for you to imitate what others have 

done. Imitation is never of any account. As Mr. Emer- 

on has it : " Imitation can never go above its level, and 

he imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity from 

he very outset. The inventor did it because it was 

; latural to him, but for any one else to do merely what he 

. las done, this is the veriest of slavish servitude, out of 

/hich nothing good can come." 

So don't imitate anything or anybody. It is written : 



38 WALKS AND TALKS. 

" Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image. Thou 
shalt not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the 
Lord thy God, am a jealous God ! " Yea, truly, it is so. 
So do not imitate. 

But this you can do. You can get ideas from here, 
and there, wherever you get a chance to forage ; and you 
can adapt these ideas, or ways and ineans, or what not, to 
your particular needs, and all this greatly to your advan- 
tage. It is Emerson who says again: '* No genius is so 
great that it can afford to dispense with the experience of 
others." This is gospel truth, but see to it that you do 
not merely imitate under the guise of availing yourself of 
the experience of others. Adapt everything ; adopt nothing ! 
That is the rule to work by, and it will bring the best of 
results ever and always. 

What I want to say is, that if you or I ever amount 
to anything on the tally-sheet of deeds in this world, it 
will be because we — 

*' Ordain ourselves, loosed of limits and imag-inary lines. 

" Going where we list — our own masters, total and absolute. 

" Listening to others, and considering well what they say. 

" Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating — 

" Nevertheless, gently, but with undeniable will divesting our- 
selves of the holds that would hold us, and doing our own work in our 
own way, as God meant we should do it even from the first." 

Do this, my brother, my sister, zvhoevcr you are, and 
you shall be blessed of God. You may be cursed by men, 
but that will not count ; for the benediction of heaven 
shall overwhelm all else, and bring you the perfect peace 
and joy which the whole world else can not bestow, and 
which, thank God, all the world can never take away from 
you. Do you believe this ? And if you do, will you act 
in accordance with your belief ? You need not answer 
me ! Will you answer yourself? 



AlSf^aPEN BOOK, 39 

This chapter is much more li'k^^ a'^^sertnon than, I 
intended it should be when I set out to put^t in omer; 
Nevertheless, the spirit said unto me, "Write!" and' I 
have written. 



AN OPEN BOOK. 

"Did you ever take a "Written Arithmetic" that has 
seen service, I don't care for how long, if only some one 
has "gone through" it one or more times, and, holding it 
up on its back between your two hands on the table before 
you, so that it stands perfectly perpendicular, suddenly 
release it, and notice where it will fall open? If you have 
never done this, suppose you try it, and perhaps it will 
put you on the track of something that you never thought 
of before. 

Now I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, 
but just so surely as you make this experiment I can fore- 
tell where the pages will part. The book will fall open, 
invariably, at the "Miscellaneous Problems" at the end 
of fractions. 

I discovered this the other day while I was rumaging 
around in our attic, which is a sort of cemetery for dead 
books, whose graves it is a kind of melancholy pleasure 
to visit and linger over for a while, now and again, calling 
up old memories of this or that which these mummified 
pages once made a part of (what memories some of those 
yellow leaves do recall). I say, being thus engaged, I 
picked up a copy of Adams's old arithmetic (the first 
book of the kind that I ever sat up nights with), and as it 
accidentally slipped from my hand and fell upon the floor 
it opened as noted above. The pages that were exposed by 
this display were worn almost to shreds, and many of the 



40 WALKS AND TALKS. 

problems were so begrimed with thumb-marks that they 
could scarcely be read, while the book, as a whole, was in 
a pretty fair state of preservation. 

As I stood for an instant gazing at these as-it-were- 
footprints from my own paleozoic age, I fell to wondering 
why the book happened to open just there (I always was 
curious about things), and then it occurred to me that 
perhaps other arithmetics might duplicate the act, under 
similar circumstances. 

So I turned to a row of arithmetical sarcophagi that 
stood on a shelf just before me (there was a long line of 
them, for some one has been going to school from our 
family most of the time for forty years, during a large 
share of which period those apostles of education, the 
school book agents, have been going about making changes 
and change wherever they went, and this row of mathe- 
matical coffins is the earnest of their faithful labors), and 
took down a copy of Greenleaf, which came next in order. 

I set the book on its back on the floor, holding it 
straight up with my hand, and then suddenly "let loose," 
and — there it was, just the same as its predecessor! Then 
I tried Davies. There was neither variation nor shadow 
of turning in the result! Then came Colburn, and Ray, 
and Robinson, and White, and a whole hecatomb of later 
fry, and in not a single instance did the sign fail. The 
demonstration was perfect, at least so far as our family 
was concerned. 

But, like a true scientist that I am, I remembered that 
one swallow doesn't make a summer, and it occurred to 
me that, perchance, this phenomenon might be a peculiar 
attachment of our family — so I set out to generalize from 
the individual concept, which had taken its initiative as 
above noted! 

I went into the cellar of a down-town book store, about 



AN OPEN BOOK. 41 

a week after school began in the fall, and there 1 found a 
cord or more of "exchanged" arithmetics (books which, 
like Dead Sea fruit, had suddenly turned to ashes in the 
hands of the children, just as they were beginning to like 
them a little for old times' sake, if nothing else), and I 
took down a couple of dozen or so of these "back-num- 
bers," and began to try experiments with them. 

At first I picked up the books at random and tested 
them according to my theory, but presently it occurred to 
me that even this might not be a thoroughly infallible 
proof; for, without specially guarding the point, there was 
2, possibility that all the books thus taken might belong to 
the children of some one nationality, and in these days of 
positive science, if a principle is worth its salt it must be 
established as world-wide in its application. 

And so I got the idea of making a Pan-average-Ameri- 
can-and-Foreign-born-school-child test of my hypothesis, 
and to this end I went through that pile of old paper and 
picked out books in which the following names were duly 
mscribed on the inside of the pasteboard covers (the "fly 
leaves" were missing in all the books I examined): Peter 
Brown, Solomon Isaacs, Patrick Murphy, Fritz Louten- 
heizer, Ignaccio Papionelli, Lars Larson, Ann Jones, Marie 
Chevalier, Jean McDonald, Topsy Johnson, Inez Dosa- 
mantes, and Catharine Trediakovitchiski, and with these 
I proceeded with my experimentation. ,■ 

The result confirmed my most sanguine expectations; / 
for, in every case, the openings were as before noted, and 
the pages exposed presented the same bedraggled and 
generally worn-out appearance that I had noticed in the 
first instance of the kind that came under my observation. * 

*In behalf of scientific inquiry* it is due that I state that, in the experiments 
above mentioned, Solomon Isaacs' book seemed possessed of a secret longing: to 
fall open at " Interest," while Topsy Johnson's evinced a disposition to open every- 
where at once, but on a fair trial they both yielded to the greater pressure, and did 
really fall apart as I have reported. 



42 WALKS AND TALKS. 

And it is for these reasons that I feel justified in mak- 
ing the bold prophetic statement that occurs in the second 
paragraph of this chapter. I believe the fact to be verified, 
beyond question, that books such as I have described, 
treated as I have noted, will behave as I have herein said 
they would. And if this postulate is established, let us 
proceed to search for the cause of these remarkable phe- 
nomena — for such I certainly consider them to be. 

Here, then, is the problem: Why is it that there is 
such singularity of eventuation, resultant from a uniformity 
of actuation exerted upon certain similar books which 
have previously been subjected to an apparently incon- 
stant mode of manipulation? (As a scientist, I hold that, 
when dealing with scientific subjects, all the statements 
pertaining thereto should be couched in scientific terms). 

Now, pursuing this investigation on the line of modern 
methods of research (I am myself a devout disciple of 
Bacon, and believe thoroughly in inductive ways of arriv- 
ing at conclusions) the first thing to be done was to collect 
data from which, if possible, to establish a theory that 
should meet the requirements of the given proposition. 

With this fundamental principle as the guiding star 
of my action, I set out for our garret again, there to re- 
survey the field of my primary observations. 

On my way home I beguiled the weary horse-car half 
hour by reading an article on railroads in a current num- 
ber of one of the great monthlies, and there I came across 
this sentence: "The rails on a heavy grade will last less 
than half as long as those on a level stretch of road, for 
it is a uniform principle, that, where the greatest amount 
of friction is, there will be found the greatest amount of 
wear and tear." 

I am confident that it was the last three words in the 
sentence that threw my thought again into the channel of 



AJ^ OPEN BOOK. 43 

my research; for it occurred to me, then and there, by tnai^ 
natural sequence of ideas with which all psychological' 
students are so familiar, that all the pages which had been 
disclosed in the books I had let fall open were literally 
covered (what there was left of them) with undeniable 
marks of both " wear and tear;" and from this point it was 
but a step to the conclusion that such record must have 
been produced by a "great amount of friction." Yea, 
verily ! 

With this hint I got into the top room of our house 
once more, and began to hunt for the friction-makers at 
this particular place in all arithmetics that I know any- 
thing about. And I found them, galore ! Hence this 
chapter. 

And, to make the case clear, I give herewith a few of 
the retarding elements that I found, though some of them 
were scarcely decipherable, owing to the great amount of 
friction that had been exerted upon them. I have taken 
them from the Miscellaneous-Problems-at-the-back-end of 
fractions of several arithmetics, and have tried to select 
them fairly, so as to truthfully represent the point I am 
driving at. Thus, I read through the grime: 

" In a certain orchard \ of the trees are peach, ^ are 
plum, f are cherry, and the remaining in are apple; how 
many trees in the orchard?" 

"A can do a piece of work in 9 days, B and C can do 
.t together in 5 days, and B can do | as much as C. How 
many days would it take them to do it, all working to- 
gether?" 

"The sum of two fractions is f, and their difference 
is -|; what are the fractions?" 

"A fish's head is 10 inches long, its tail is as long as 
its head and J its body, and its body is as long as its head 
and tail together; how long is the fish?" 



44 WALKS AND TALKS. 

But I need not extenuate, nor would I set down aught 
in malice. To be sure, the problems I have given above 
are the worst worn of any I found, and in some cases the 
"tear" in them was so great that I had to supply the 
figures, but neither of these things in any way affects the 
argument. Vou know that problems, of which the above 
are but accentuated specimens, abound at this point in all 
written arithmetics. Vo2i know what a time you had with 
them when you went over them; and still better do you 
know, as a teacher, what a time you have had with every 
class you have tried to put through them — or them 
through your class ! 

If you grew up in a country school, you know that 
for winter after winter you sat in the back seat and 
scratched your head over these and similar problems; and 
if you were reared on the graded-school plan, you know 
that you labored on such examples night after night, and 
got all the folks in the house to help you solve them, and 
then did your best to remember Just /lozv tJie figures looked 
on your slate, so that you could reproduce them on exami- 
nation, if you had to! In either case it took weeks to get 
over the two or three pages of these puzzlers, and hence 
the " wear and tear " that your old book doth show. 

Now, the thing in all this that gives me pause is, how 
does it come about that arithmetic-makers put such prob- 
lems as these in this part of the book? When you look 
these examples steadily in the face, and probe into their 
true inwardness, you cannot help asking what business 
have they here, anyhow? And the only answer I can 
possibly imagine as coming from anybody is this, that 
they have fractions in them and so belong in /^<2/ department 
of arithmetic. 

But what an answer is this! So does the calculation 
of any one of the occupations of Jupiter's moons have 



AN OPEN BOOK, 45 

fractions in it, but that can hardly be urged as a good and 
sufficient reason why such a problem should have a place 
in Miscellaneous Problems in fractions in arithmetic! 
And yet such an argument would be but a few degrees 
more flinty than the one which would place such problems 
as I have quoted in this part of our school arithmetics. 

The fact is that the fractional elements in these prob- 
lems are mere trifling affairs as compared with the princi- 
ples which the solution of these same problems involves. 
And as i6v these principles, when the pupil "tackles" 
tnese problems he has not been given one single word of 
instruction as to how to deal with them and their likes. 

For instance, take the first problem I have quoted. 
\thQ\ongs\.o 2i general class of problems in which several 
parts of a quantity are noted, and a definite number is 
announced as being equal to the remainder that is left 
wnen all these several parts are put together and this sum 
IS taken from the whole. But where, in his previous work, 
has the child come across anything even remotely resem- 
bling this? He has never been even so much as "expos- 
ed " tt3 such a situation. 

And all of the other problems I have quoted are open 
to the same criticism. Their solution demands a mastery 
of principles that belong to mathematics far in advance 
of the attainments of the pupils to whom such examples 
are given. And hence the friction. Talk about bricks 
without straw! An Israelite in Egypt with only a hand- 
ful of Nile reeds out of which to make his daily tale of 
adobe, was plethoric in resources as compared with the 
destitute mathematical condition of the hordes of gram- 
mar school children who are driven, head on, to these 
problems, the country over, every day in the week! 

But I would not care so much about that — I have no 
objection to having the children worked, and worked hard, 



46 WALKS AND TALKS, 

in arithmetic; it is not about that, or anything like that, 
that I complain — but what I do rebel against is, the de- 
moralizing outcome of such a method of procedure. 

And that such is the result, you and I are living 
examples. These problems, and their Hkes, upset us, 
mathmetically, for many a day and year. They made 
guessers, and cut-and-try workers, and answer-huatersout 
of us. When they were put at us we didn't knou^ whether 
to add, or subtract, or multiply, or divide; and so wetriedl 
first one of these processes and then the other or perh^si 
all four at once; and when we had it "figured through,'"^ 
we hastened to turn back to see if we had the answer! 

Isn't that what these problems made us do, and do 
they not make your pupils do the same, even unto this 
day? 

Now, if there is anything that mathematics ought to 
teach it is definiteness of design, clear perception of pro- 
cedure, and certainty of results — in a word, absolute accu- 
racy should be the purpose of all .mathematical training. 
But the wrestling with problems like these, in the way we 
all have to — if they are given to us in our early teens and 
without a word of preparation for them — this tends to the 
very reverse of accuracy, and generates in us a looseness 
of thought and a dabbling with chances that drive us 
close into the realm of shams and pretense, not to say- 
lying, before we are aware. 

"What would I do about it?" I would cut everyone 
of those problems out of the arithmetics, where they 
occur — that is so far as giving them to pupils :s concerned. 
And then, when the boys and girls got so they could 
manipulate numbers well — could add, subtract, multiply, 
and divide whole numbers and fractions rapidly and 
accurately; when I was certain that they knew their mul- 
tiplication table so well that they didn't have to keep the 



Ai^ OPEN JBObK. 4? 

fore finger of their left hand in the book at that tabl^ 
\vhenever they were working problems, and could add 
without using their fingers for counters— when 1 was Surd 
they had passed that period, then 1 would take up § 
STUDY OF PROBLEMS, as sticli, and pursue the subject with 
them intelligently, systematically, and definitely^ till they 
mastered it. 

For instance, the first problem I have quoted beldrigs 
to a class of problems y as I have already said. I would 
take up, say, that class, or kind of problems, beginning 
with very simple ones, and teach my pupils to see what 
Was given, and hoW th^ same must be manipulated to find 
out what is required. For all problems of this particular 
kind are worked hi exactly the same ivay. 

And when my pupils had ''caught the idea," I Would 
improvise a hundred similar problems, all involving thi 
same principle and worked in the same way, making the 
numbers larger, and the complications more and more 
intricate as we went along. And I would teach them to 
recognize problems of this class, no matter where they 
stand in the arithmetic. 

Thus, there is no reason why this first problem should 
not have its fractional parts expressed as hundreths, and 
so find its place in decimal fractions, or percentage; but 
if a pupil had studied it as a problem^ he would smile on 
it under any form, and solve it accurately, every time. 

But without a study- of problems^ as such, when the 
like of this turns up in percentage it is a new thi?ig to the 
average student, something to sweat over and guess at, 
even as when it first appeared in another guise. 

But this chapter is already too long. I only add that 
everyone of these miscellaneous problems is capable of 
being relegated to its proper class and should be studied 
only in such company, and then by the batch. The-one- 



48 WALKS AND TALKS. 

of-a-kind-and-every-kind-different hodge-podge of exam- 
ples that now makes up the part of arithmetic that always 
shows its dirty face when an old book of this sort is per- 
mitted to parade itself, is a monstrosity that ought to be 
banished from all healthy mathematical society. 

Won't yo?i help to shove it out into the rubbish pile, 
where it ought to have gone long ago; or, better still, 
won't you do what j/^?/ can to land it in a perdition which it 
amply deserves for having caused so much trouble in the 
world — and for having led so many primarily honest 
souls astray. 



AMONG THE AZTECS. 

Just as a preacher now-a-days, sometimes, after he 
has read his text, begins forthwith to explain to his con- 
gregation that the words he has read in their hearing do 
not mean at all what they have commonly been supposed 
to mean, but something entirely different ; that they 
include more and exclude less, etc., etc., so I proceed to 
remark to my " beloved readers" that the linc-with-a-slot- 
in-it, which has so kindly furnished me the theme for these 
disjointed papers, should not be too literally construed 
nor made too narrow in its application ; for it was my 
original intention that it should be liberal enough in its 
boundaries to permit my " Walks Abroad " to include 
also my rides. 

I make this remark for the sake of any literal critics 
who may happen to read these lines, lest, in what follows, 
they should insist that I could not have walked so far as I 
presently shall speak of going; and that, having misrepre- 
sented in one case, I am not to be believed in any. For 



AMONG THE AZTECS. 49 

does not the law clearly say, falsus in uno falsus in omne ; 
and does not the challenging of the authority of law lead 
directly to anarchy, as the questioning of doctrine and 
dogma leads, head on, to infidelity ? These things must 
be looked after, or, as Mr. Dickens says, " the country is 
done for." 

How could we live without literal critics ? 

And so I state again, to make sure that there may be 
no danger of misunderstanding, that, true to the Hiber- 
nian instinct which has always been strong within me, 
when I say "walks" I mean "rides" ; that these terms 
are synonymous in my thought and mutually controvert- 
ible in my expression, and I shall do my very best to keep 
them equal in power and glory. 

And now, if we understand each other, we will go on. 



In one of my "walks abroad," the other day, I got as 
far away from home as the City of Mexico, and the things 
I saw while there are enough to fill the blank place in my 
line-of-the-missing-link for many and many a day. 

I think the thing that impressed me most during my 

stay in the old city was the fact that I found I knew so 

little about it before I got into it. And yet I studied my 

geography, all right and regular, and I find, on referring 

to my diploma (which I have looked up for this very 

nurpose, it being the first time I have had occasion to use 

since it was granted, twenty-five years ago), that my 

irk in this branch of learning for the term which 

eluded the study of Mexico was 96 ! 

Surely I must have known something about this 

igion once, or, in any event, I must have succeeded in 

laking my teacher think that I knew something of it, or, 

it least, in making her think that it would be a good thing 

4 



50 WALKS AND TALKS. 

to make Other people think that I knew — for the records 
were open to inspection, and my diploma is addressed, 
" To all the World, Greeting ! " 

But the truth is, I knew very little of Mexico as it is 
when first I set foot on her soil. 

As near as I can make out, what ideas I had of this 
country were gathered from the geography study which 
my diploma kindly preserves the memory and record of. 
As far as my own recollection of that epoch in my school 
life is concerned, I find a sort of a shadowy remembrance 
of some pretty tough lessons, near the back part of the 
book, where there were pictures of savages and heathen 
sparsely clad in hot weather clothes, and living in bamboo 
huts ; and, arranged around which pictures aforesaid, 
were certain strings of letters which were alleged to be 
the names of something, but which seemed to my boyish 
vision like a transcri[)t of zig-zag lightning with the kinks 
all left in. Witness IztaccihuatI, Huitzilopochtli, Acama- 
pitzin, Itztli, etc., etc. 

A page or two of that sort of thing musi have been a 
most delectable diet of mental pabulum to set a "maw- 
crammed and crop-full" boy down to, as, sleepily, he 
began to turn the pages before him about half an hour 
after school *' took up " after dinner ! 

The geography class always recited after dinner. I 
don't know why it was, but somehow geography always 
was an afternoon study. We read and did arithmetic in 
the morning, when we were fresh, but grammar and 
geography always came in the afternoon. Perhaps that 
is the reason I remember so little about these two studies, 
though my marks in both of them are very high. I was 
always a pretty good guesser, and I early learned that if 
a noun came after \\\q. word " is " it was in the *' nominative 



AMONG THE AZTECS. 51 

case after " and not " objective after," and so my grammar 
marks were as good as those in geography. 

I have forgotten, though, how it happened that my 
geography marks were so good. But I know that they 
were good, for my diploma says so, and the figures on it 
are all made by a man who wrote a most beautiful hand. 
You ought to see those figures ! I hadn't seen them for 
twenty-five years till to-day, but truly they are beautiful ! 

" But, to return to our subject," as our dear pastor 
says. 

My friend. Prof. (fill it in to suit yourself, you 

all know him), who sits in his library reading this article, 
and who tells his children to "go and find mother and 
talk to her" if they happen to come into the room where 
he sits by himself, surrounded by his books, and reads, 
and reads, and reads, — remarks just here : 

" But why did he have to rely on the memory of the 
geography he learned at school for his knowledge of 
Mexico before he visited that country ? Has he, then, 
never read Prescott's ' Conquest of Mexico,' nor Brantz 
Mayer's ' History of the Mexican War,' nor Kings- 
borough's * Mexican Antiquities,' nor any of the classic 
authorities on this most interesting people and their 
habitat ? " 

To whom I reply . 

My dear sir, Ihave not read these books, not one of 
them. I wish I had, but, to be honest with you, I haven't. 
And if you want to know why I haven't, I beg to ex- 
plain that, up to the time I was of age I lived on a farm, 
mostly, where we got up before day-light the year round, 
and "hustled" from the hour when the "rosy-fingered 
Aurora appeared bringing back the dawn" till after supper, 
when we were too tired to do anything but go to bed. 



52 WALKS AND TALKS. 

That is one reason why I didn't read these interesting 
books in the days of my youth, and another reason is, that 
our folks didn't have these books, nor many others, even 
if I had had time to read them. And I further respect- 
fully submit that, in this respect, I much resemble about 
95 per cent, of the boys (and girls, too, for that matter) 
who attend our public schools! 

To be sure, these do not all grow up on farms, but they 
do live in homes where there is no plenitude of wealth ; 
where all the household has to work hard at manual labor 
for a living, and where there are few books on Mexico or 
any other country. That is how it happens that I was 
forced " to rely on the memory of the geography I learned 
at school for my knowledge of Mexico before I went 
there," and why there are several millions of people in 
this dear land of ours who would be obliged to do the 
same thing, should they take the "walk abroad" which I 
have recently taken. 

This shows why we ought to have pretty good ge- 
ographies in our schools. 

But to return once more to our subject. 

I was surprised to find that one of the things I did 
not know about the City of Mexico was what a perfectly 
delightful climate it has. I don't remember one word 
about '* climate " in the geography, unless it might have 
been ** mild and salubrious." But those words are of no 
manner of account in giving one an idea of the climate of 
Mexico City. They can't begin to do the subject jus- 
tice. Let me tell you a thing or two, and then see if you 
think they are equal to the emergency. 

We got into the City of Mexico about the middle of 
January, and we left it the first of March, and if we saw a 
cloud in the sky bigger than Barnum's circus tent during 
all that time, I have forgotten it. Six weeks of sunshine 



AMONG THE AZTECS. ^ 

without a break ! And I was told by perfectly reliable 
parties that it had been just that way ever since the first 
of October, and that that was the regular thing, every 
year, infallibly. 

That is to say, from October to March it never rains 
in Mexico City. The sun shines continually (I mean by 
day, dear literal critic) for more than five months in the 
year, and umbrellas can go to the pawnshop all that time, 
so far as rainy weather is concerned. 

In early April the rains begin, and they come decently 
and in order. In the first place, they always come in the 
afternoon. It never rains in the morning in Mexico City. 
The showers come at about five o'clock in the afternoon, 
and they are generally over by seven. Sometimes they 
last till into the night, but not often. The mornings are 
always bright, and a fellow always has a fair chance to 
get his work done, every day, before the rain begins. 

During June, July and August, it rains every day, 
from five to seven p. m., and no postponements on account 
of the weather. By October 1st the rains are over, and 
they can be absolutely relied upon not to show up again 
till the following April. 

Now, that is what I call a good weather programme, 
so far as the hydraulic part of it is concerned. As to the 
heat, that is equally satisfactory. The mean temperature 
for the year is 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest month 
is May, when the thermometer sometimes reaches 85 
degrees. The coldest month is August, when the mercury 
gets as low as 50 degrees. During our stay, from January 
to March, the hottest weather we saw was 75 degrees, and 
the coldest 55 degrees. 

Can " mild and salubrious " do justice to such a 
Climate as that ? I wonder, too, if these facts had been 



54 WALKS AND TALKS. 

noted in my geography if I should not have remembered 
them, whether I got 96 or not. 

But I must draw rein, for, once on this subject of the 
climate of Mexico City, I shall write on to the end of the 
book if I don't put a limit on myself. 

And even then I could not tell of a/lits charms. How 
the farmers have six rainless months in which to gather 
their crops, and no harm to fear for their grain. How 
they have more than four months to plant in, and yet their 
crops all come up together and get ripe together ; because, 
you see, about the first of December the ground gets so 
dry that grain will not sprout in it, even though it is 
planted, but will lie there, safe and sound, till the rains 
come, and then all come up at once, and grow evenly, and 
get ripe evenly. Oh, there are a thousand things to tell, 
just about l/iis, but " time and space forbid." 

That is not the way my geography lesson about 
Mexico ended. I wish it had been. Because, then, I 
might have been so much interested in what I learned 
about that country in school that 1 should have read 
about it in " Classic Authorities " when I got where I 
could. 



THE SCHOOLS OF MEXICO. 55 



THE SCHOOLS OF MEXICO. 

I came across a good many other things not set down 
in geography, during my ** walks abroad " in that so-near- 
and-yet-so-far sister Republic, and there are not a few of 
them, of an educational nature, which seems to me worthy 
of mention in this record. 

In the first place, as we were on our way down to 
Vera Cruz, I happened, by one of those fortunate accidents 
which every now and then will come to even the most 
un/ucky of mortals, to make the acquaintance of a gentle- 
man who, above all others, could give me the ''inside 
track," so to speak, that led to the very " upper walks " in 
Mexican education circles. This was none other than 
SeJior Sandoval, of the state of Zacatecas, the man who 
was chairman of the committee appointed by President 
Diaz to determine the nature and extent of the educa- 
tional exhibit which the Republic of Mexico made at the 
World's Fair, in Chicago. 

It was a little curious, too, how I happened to 
" locate " this most excellent and worthy Mexican scholar, 
teacher, and above all, gentleman. 

Our train had stopped in the " bush " (for we were 
down in the low country) for some unexplained reason, 
and everybody was curious to know the "why" of this 
unexpected phenomenon. Windows went up all along the 
cars, on both sides of the train, and as many heads were 
thrust out through them as though the geography of the 
event were Massachusetts instead of the '* terra caliente " 
of old, and reputedly incurious Mexico. 

Strange, isn't it, how, the world over, we all flatter 



56 WALKS AND TALKS. 

ourselves that we are the only ones who do this or that; 
till presently, walking abroad, we find everybody doing the 
very thing we thought we had a corner on? The Mexi- 
cans on that train were as curious a lot of men and women 
as though they had been born under the shadow of Bunker 
Hill Monument. 

But, as I was saying, when the train stopped, a very 
urbane Mexican gentleman got up from his seat behind 
mc, and stood in the aisle, just beside me, looking out to 
see what he could see. In his hand he held a book; and, 
as he leaned over, I trained enough of my newly acquired 
Spanish into line to make out that the volume was none 
other than Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essay on " Education," 
translated into Spanish, and published by those worthy 
bookmakers, D. Appleton & Co. of New York. 

Now, experience has taught me that the books a man 
reads are a far better index to his character than a whole 
carload of certificates, recommendations and diplomas on 
the same point; and as soon as I saw this book in the 
hands of this gentleman, I felt, instinctively, that I had 
found a friend, if only I knew enough to speak with him 
in ^is native tongue. 

Great was my delight, therefore, when, a moment 
later, I discovered that, although I was unable to speak 
Spanish with this gentleman he was thoroughly prepared 
to speak English with me; for, turning to me, he asked a 
question in words and tone that even " Fair Harvard " 
might not have been ashamed of. To this I made reply 
to the best of my ability, and a few minutes later we were 
chatting together just as easily as if we had grown up in 
the same door yard, instead of having been born several 
thousand miles apart, one a native Mexican, and the other 
just as native a Yankee. It was the books we had read 
that thus brought us together. It is always so. 



THE SCHOOLS OF MEXICO. 57 

As our conversation progressed, I soon found that my 
newly acquired acquaintance was exceedingly well posted 
on educational topics, both ancient and modern, foreign 
and domestic; and I judged him to have been the very 
man for the place, in mapping out the matter and manner 
of the Mexican educational exhibit, in Chicago. 

He gave a brief outline of what he had done, out I 
was specially anxious to hear from him, direct, as to the 
present status of education in the Republic. On this sub- 
ject he was, of course, well prepared to speak, and he 
gave me much interesting and valuable information 
regarding the same; but, what was infinitely better, he 
gave me a chance to see for myself, by telling me where 
I could find the best schools in Mexico, and by giving me 
letters of introduction which I found to be limitless pass- 
♦^orts into the very heart of Mexico's educational 400. 

For the very acme of courtesy and genuine good 
fellowship, commend me to a Mexican gentleman and 
scholar of the type of Senor Sandoval. What a pleasure 
it is to know that there are the best of good men, all over 
the earth. 

Being thus introduced, the school I saw the most of 
was the National Normal School, located in the Ciiy of 
Mexico, of which Sefior Serrano is Director General. 

Regarding this school, let me say, first, that it is the 
special pet of President Diaz, who has done everything 
for it that money and an enthusiastic friend could do. 
This peer among the greatest of modern statesmen is 
thoroughly a nineteenth century man, and he believes that 
the thing above all others that Mexico needs, just now, is 
a public school system that shall educate all her people; 
and, as a first step in that direction, he has built up this 
National Normal School which is intended to prepare 
teachers for their work in the schools of the Republic. 



58 WALKS AND TALKS. 

How well he has succeeded in making the materialization 
of his plan tally with his ideal may be gathered, in part, 
from what follows. 

The school is compose of two divisions, one for young 
men and the other for young women, the practice of co- 
education of the sexes not having reached Mexico. These 
different divisions occupy separate buildings, which are 
several blocks apart; and, as a matter of fact, are as inde- 
pendent of each other as though they had not a common 
aim. I visited only the school for young men, and all I 
have to say is about that branch of the institution. 

I found, upon inquiry, that, while President Diaz fully 
believes in the co-education of the sexes, yet he does not 
deem it wise to attempt such a measure in a country 
where prejudice is so deeply rooted and so strongly set 
against it. 

Indeed, the prudent policy of this man, not only in 
this, but in a hundred other matters, commanded my 
profoundest respect, the more I learned of him and his 
doings in the last twenty years. He is a man among men 
who really believes that Rome was not made in a day, 
and who has the patience and good sense to regulate his 
actions accordingly. If he lives twenty years longer, and 
remains at the head of affairs in Mexico during that 
period, he will have Mexican boys and girls learning their 
lessons seated in the same school-room; but if he ever 
does bring about such a state of things, it will be because 
he has head enough not to be in too big a hurry about it! 

I wonder if it would be possible for some of our 
"get-there" Americans to learn anything from this 
patient and business-like head of the Mexican Republic. 

The building occupied by the young men's depart- 
ment of this school is located near the Palace buildings, 
just a little off from the Zocalo, or chief square of the city. 



THE SCHOOLS OF MEXICO. 50 

It is a two story structure, and built around the four sides 
of a central square, ox patio, after the manner of all Mexi- 
can buildings. When Diaz came into power this building 
was an old monastery; but, in common with hundreds of 
similar structures, it was confiscated by the republic, and 
is now state, rather than church property. 

And may I stop, just here, to say that the church and 
the state are most thoroughly divorced from each other 
in modern Mexico, under the rule of Diaz. This separa- 
tion is carried to such an extent that no religious exercises 
whatever are permitted in connection with any state 
affairs; nor is a priest, or a nun or a protestant minister, 
or even a " Y. M. C. A. young man " allowed to go upon the 
street clad in garments that in any way indicate his or 
her relations to religion or the church — any church. 

On the street, all men are alike, in that they are then 
simply citizens of the Republic. In their homes, or in 
their churches, they may dress as they please and do as 
they will, provided they keep within bounds; but in 
public, their peculiar creeds or whatnot peccadillos must 
not be flaunted in the faces of their neighbors. 

Any church — all churches, per se, receive the fullest 
protection from the Mexican government. A Mormon 
or a Hotentot can go there and worship according to the 
dictates of his own conscience, and the whole power of 
the Mexican government is behind him as a guarantee 
that he shall in no way be molested or made afraid, so 
long as he " keeps out of politics; " but let any church or 
religious organization, as such, begin to meddle with state 
affairs, and somebody is exceedingly liable to be in states'- 
prison, forthwith. 

Curious, some of the ways they have in Mexico! 

The building fronts on a well kept street, and is built 
flush to the side walk. Its only entrance or exit is a wide 



60 WALKS AND TALKS. 

door which is in the middle of the building, on the street 
side, and there is ahvays a poi^tero, or guard, on duty 
there. Every pupil and teacher has to pass this guard in 
going in or out; and an accurate record is kept of the 
presence or absence of everybody connected with the 
school, during school hours. This record is preserved, 
and is open to inspection, to all parties concerned, at any 
and all times. In this and some other respects there is a 
rigorous military discipline in the management of this 
school. 

I found Senor Serrano, the president of the institution, 
to whom I presented my letter of introduction, a most 
gracious and affable gentleman. He is about sixty-five 
years old, and has "seen service," as nearly every promi- 
nent Mexican has who has reached that age and has had 
anything to do with public affairs. He was for many 
years a successful lawyer, and was called to his present 
position on account of his rare executive ability. He was 
director in chief of the Mexican exhibit in Chicago and 
spent most of his time in that city during the progress of 
the Fair. I found him dictating a letter to Mrs. Potter 
Palmer on some point connected with the exhibit he had 
charge of, and m which she was also interested, and if that 
lady ever receives a more dignified, gracious and diplo- 
matic epistle than that same letter, like the author of 
John Gilpin, "may I be there to see." 

My letter of introduction was a " sesame open " to 
the school and all that pertained thereto, and I spent 
some two days in going about the institution, which is, in 
many respects, much like a normal school in "the 
states; "but which has a number of things, that, like 
somebody's sarsaparilla, are "peculiar to itself." 

There are about two hundred young men in the 
school preparing to teach. The course covers four years, 



THE SCHOOLS OF MEXICO, 61 

and is considerably more extended than that of any other 
normal school with which I am acquainted. It differs 
from our normal school course in that it has more lan- 
guage study than our schools insist on. Of these lan- 
guages, Latin, French, German and English (and of 
course Spanish), all have prominent places ; but it struck 
me as a significant fact that English is the one language, 
besides Spanish, the study of which is made compulsory. 

Most of the teachers in the school speak English, 
and all of them are busy studying that language. Sefior 
Serrano himself had never learned the English language 
though he speaks Spanish, French, and German; but the 
fact that he was to go to Chicago made him, as he said to me, 
" ashamed to go to a country the language of which he 
should be unable to speak," and so at sixty-five, he was 
learning English! 

And admirably he was progressing, too, as his conver- 
sation showed, though he had been at work on it less than 
two months when I met him. As I compared my six 
weeks old Spanish with his English, which was but two 
weeks its senior, I was fain to hide my head and exclaim, 
" O, wretched man that I am, how can I catch the trick 
of learning a foreign language to equal this charming old 
gentleman ! " 

But from what I saw of Mexican students they are 
much quicker in learning a foreign language than our 
American students are. Indeed, the '^ cultured classes " 
in Mexico are much more proficient in speaking lan- 
guages other than their mother tongue than are a cor- 
responding set of people in the states. It is a rare thing 
to meet a scholarly person in the City of Mexico who 
does not speak more than one language, while it is not 
uncommon to meet men and women who will converse 
fluently in eithci Spanish, French, English, or German. 



62 WALKS AND TALKS. 

From what I observed, I think this is due partly to a 
natural bent of mind, suited to language study, which the 
Mexicans possess; but, perhaps more than this it comes 
from the natural methods of teaching a foreign language 
which are used in the Mexican schools. These are largely 
inductive, and consist in making pupils actually talk the 
language they are studying, rather than merely teaching 
them rules about how to talk if they ever get so they can! 
The signs of the times begin to indicate that similar 
methods will, before long, be largely used in the study of 
foreign languages in our own schools; and when they are, 
perhaps our children will show up as well in thic branch 
of learning as the Mexican children do now. 



MEXICAN CLASS-ROOM WORK. 

As a workman is known by his chips, so is a school 
known by the pupils it turns out. This is universally true, 
but I make a special application of the principle in the 
case of the National Normal School, of the City of 
Mexico. 

And, so far as Normal Schools are concerned, expe- 
rience leads me to believe that the place to look for its 
"chips" is in the "model school," or "training depart- 
ment" of these institutions. The students of the normal 
schools proper become mere repositories, or storage bat- 
teries, as it were, of the theories and arts of the professors 
under whom they learn their trade. But in the training 
department one gets a view of ultimates — of the way in 
which these theories and arts *' pan out," as a cold and 
heartless money-making man-o'-the-world would say. 

Being aware of this fact, I spent small time in view- 
ing the elegant laboratories and other mechanical appli- 



MEXICAN CLASS-BOOM WORK. 63 

ances for making teachers with which this institution is 
so thoroughly equipped. All these are worth while, 
doubtless; but I felt as though I would be willing to 
"infer" considerable along these lines, if only I could get 
my eye on the "finished product" of the concern. And 
so I made straight for the model school, being once fairly 
in possession of car/e blanche to the institution. 

I found a school of nearly three hundred pupils, of 
all grades, from the primary up to the " higher branches," 
as in such cases made and provided. The school was well 
organized, and the greatest of care was exercised not to 
permit the crude efforts of "pupil teachers" to result 
harmfully upon the innocents on whom they " practiced." 

This was a thing that pleased me greatly, because I 
have known instances where it was not done, and where 
the children who were worked upon by these "'prentice 
hands" — -the chips — -were terribly chopped up by the 
performance. 

I know a young man to-day who cannot read a page 
in a magazine aloud, decently, but who can " elocute " any- 
thing he has learned by heart in a most charming manner; 
and all because, when he learned to read, in the training 
department of a normal school, under a pupil teacher 
who was let loose upon him without a chaperone, he was 
made to rehearse the same reading lessons over, and over, 
and over again, so that he could ''read them elegantly with- 
out looking at his booky as his teacher used artlessly to say, 
when his class came up for examination before the whole 
school. 

You see, this pupil teacher was marked on the work 
she did with this class, and the proof of her work was a 
show performance of her reading class before the whole 
school. And what so good a show as a nice, clean class 
ot little folks, all dressed in their best clothes, standing 



64 WALKS AND TALKS. 

in a row, reading, oh so charmingly, from books held in the 
left hand, and which they didnt have to look at at all? 

And this was called teaching reading. 

The woman who did this thing told me, recently, that, 
now she has come to realize the enormity of her work 
with that class, she has never dared even to pray for for- 
giveness; and whenever she meets one of the pupils whom 
she so ignorantly abused, she is fain to call on the rocks 
and mountains to fall upon her! 

Perhaps her "punishment to fit her crime" may some 
time be to sit for ages and ages, and be compelled to 
listen to the stumblings and haltings of persons whose 
instruction in this branch of learning has been elocu- 
tionary drill to the neglect of sight reading! 

But then, in all professions it is apt to be pretty hard 
on the patients of the ones who are learning the trade. 
Who was that celebrated surgeon that performed a very 
delicate and critical operation upon a lady's eye, and v/ho, 
being complimented on his marvelous skill, replied: '* Oh, 
but you should see the bushels of eyes I ruined while 
learning*to be so skillful ! " 

And so I was glad to find the greatest of care in the 
supervision of the pupil teachers in this school. 

As I have already said, the course is four years, and 
the normal students are not permitted to teach at all in 
the training department until the last half of the second 
year; and it is not until the fourth year that they are per- 
mitted to have entire charge of a class, and hear recita- 
tions unattended by some professor of the school. This 
guards the danger very well; and, judging from what I 
saw, reduces the evil well toward the vanishing point. ) 

But some of the ways of this school are things to 
smile at, from our point of vision. For inst^-nce, in most 
of the rooms I visited in the training department, where 



MEXICAN CLASS-ROOM WOBK, 65 

recitations were going on, the teacher was smoking his 
cigarette as he heard the boys recite; and, not to distract 
his attention too much from his work, he had one of the 
boys of the school standing near at hand, whose business 
it was to " scratch a match " for him whenever his cigarette 
went out, or he wished to light a fresh one. 

To perform this service for the teacher was a great 
honor rather than a disgrace, and in some of the rooms, 
at least, I learned that it was the special prerogative of 
the best boy in the school to thus be a torch bearer for his 
chief. 

It was also interesting to me how this position of 
best-boyship was determined in some of the rooms. I do 
not know how general the method is, but this was the 
modus operandi in at least one room I visited: 

The teacher gives the pupils, from time to time, and 
for various credits, bits of paper called vales, much like 
" rewards of merits " that we used to get " in the old days 
when I was young." Now when a boy becomes the law- 
ful possessor of a number of these vales, they are his, to 
do with as he pleases; and here is what he pleases to do 
with them: 

Everybody gambles in Mexico, and the boy who 
aspires to become the best boy in school resorts to this 
practice to gain the coveted position. And this is the 
way of it: If he happens to be a clever reader, for instance, 
he will challenge some member of his class to a reading 
match, each party to the contest to " put up " an agreed 
number of vales to "come into the game," as it were, and 
then they "read for the pile !" 

The teacher is also made particeps criminis, and to him 
is given the position of umpire, or referee; though upon 
this condition, that, if both boys succeed in reading the 
5 



66 WALKS AND TALKS. 

lesson perfectly, then the teacher must give to each of 
them a number of vales equal to the total number they 
have both together risked. If one boy trips, and the 
other does not, then the successful one "wins the pile;" 
'/vhile if both fail, the teacher " rakes in the stakes." 

In this way the position of best-boy-in-the-school is 
striven for, and in this way only can it be won, for the boy 
who has the greatest number of vales at the end of each 
month is the best boy in school ! 

But, once won, like other high positions which are 
gained by equally creditable means in more countries 
than Mexico, great is the power and glory thereof. For, 
not only can the best boy in school light cigarettes for his 
teacher, but he becomes the monitor of the school room 
when the teacher is hearing recitations. 

And so, between match scratchings the best boy 
patrols the aisles of the school room, calling the other 
boys to order, here and there as occasion requires, and 
recording in the note book, which the teacher furnishes 
him for such purpose, the delinquencies and shortcomings 
of any who fail to heed his warnings and exhortations to 
correct behavior. And from the record he makes there is 
no appeal. The teacher will sustain it, every time, as why 
should he not, for is it not the handiwork of the best boy 
in school ! 

Another perquisite of this high office of best boy is, 
that at the end of every month he is given all the tops, 
marbles, balls, knives, kite-strings, and whatsoever that 
the teacher or monitor has taken away from bad boys 
during the four weeks previous. 

How different all this is from what we are used to 
here in the states. In this civilized land our teachers talk 
to the children aboui virtue being its own reward, and 
other unattractive maxims of similar import. But what 



MEXICAN CLASS-BOOM WOEK. 67 

inducements are these to make one strive for the position 
oi best boy in school ; and who can tell what might be, 
even here, if a conglomorate pile of tops, and balls, and 
marbles, and kite-strings, and whatsoever were held before 
the eager eyes of our children as the prize to be awarded 
at the end of every month to the fellow who could win 
the most va/es from his schoolmates and teacher? 

And then think of the emoluments of ofifice that 
would rise to one's vision under such circumstances. Once 
installed as monitor, with autocratic power, what job lots 
oi tops and balls, etc., one might confiscate from the bad 
boys, in the full assurance that they would be placed 
where they would do the most good at the end of the 
month ! If that school does not turn out a full quota of 
Quays, or Wanamakers, or Brices, or Jay Goulds, one of 
these days, then shall I loose my faith in the power of 
e<iucational training to mould character ! 

But, for all this — which seems to us so strange — I 
never saw better class- work, anywhere, than I saw in the 
training department of this normal school in Mexico. 
The pupils were alert, prompt, obedient, and interested. 

I heard one recitation in mental arithmetic which was 
specially pleasing to me. It was a class of boys about 
twelve years old. The teacher stood before them and 
extemporized problem after problem, which involved the 
special principle upon which they were then working, 
which happened to be finding the area of rectangles, of 
varied dimensions, with such complications as this: "How 
many stone slabs, three feet long and two feet wide, would 
it take to pave a court thirty feet long by eighteen feet 
wide?" 

As soon as the problem was announced the little fel- 
lows, every one of them, went at it with knitted brows, all 
the work being done mentally. 



68 WALKS AND TALKS. 

And it was wonderful how rapidly they found correct 
results. When a number had "raised hands" the teacher 
called on some one to solve the problem orally. The 
pupil would rise in his place and first salute the 
teacher by bringing his left hand to his forehead, and then 
waving it forward, at the same time making a slight bow; 
and then he would say, " Sefior, what are your com- 
mands?" and then go on and solve the problem. There 
were some mistakes, but the work as a whole was most 
excellent. 

To make sure that the work was not altogether a 
"put up job" for the entertainment and delectation of 
visitors, I asked the privilege of myself dictating a prob- 
lem. This was most courteously granted, and the result 
showed that the instruction reached to principles, and was 
something more than mere parrot-like surface work. 

In a word, the teaching done in this school struck me 
as being as excellent in its results as any I have ever seen, 
anywhere. 

The school is semi-military, also, and all the pupils 
have uniforms which they wear on special occasions. 
Such occasions are frequent, as holidays, fete days, and 
the like, are "as thick as blackberries" in Mexico. 

But even this is made of much service to the boys 
who attend this school; for, in order that they may be 
neat and trim looking in thc'r uniform, and when on 
parade, they are held to the most rigid training regarding 
their personal apparel and appearance every day at school. 
Their faces and hands must be clean, their hair well 
kempt, their clothes brushed, and their shoes blacked 
every day. They are also held rigidly accountable for all 
the belongings assigned to their care in connection with 
their school work — their books, gymnasium outfit, gun. 



MIJXJCAN CLASS-BOOM WORK. 69 

etc., all of which tends to most excellent training, accord- 
ing to my way of thinking. 

It w^as a fine sight to see these three hundred or more 
boys, from six to fifteen years of age, pay a visit to Diaz, 
as they did on one of the days of late February or early 
March. They came to school at the usual hour, eight in 
the morning, all in uniforms, and as trim and neat looking 
as proud and ambitious mothers could make them. 

At the armory they received their guns, and what can 
make a boy every inch a king equal to giving him a gun 
to carry? 

And every one, even the smallest, had his gun. 

Then they formed into line, about half-past eight, 
when, for some reason that I did not learn (perhaps it 
was part of the plan, just to try the boys), there was a 
halt in the proceedings; and for three mortal hours those 
boys stood in line, though the sun was hot and beat 
directly down upon them. It was a trying ordeal, surely. 
But the boys stood it bravely, and for the most part held 
their places in good form during all the slow passing 
hours. 

Finally, a little before twelve they got the word to 
move, and away they went, a regimental band from Cha- 
tultepec leading them, marching to the president's home, 
which is about a mile from the school. Arrived there, 
they w^ere admitted to the residence, and the whole line 
passed in review before the president, who shook hands 
with every boy of them as they went by. Then they 
marched back to school, where they broke ranks and went 
home for the day, having been steadily in service for 
between five and six hours. 

Somehow I could not rid myself of the impression 
that this experience was one that would be of lasting value 
to the boys, in more ways than I can stop here to tell. 



TO WALKS AND TALKS, 

This association of President Diaz with the children 
of Mexico is a favorite act of his, and one of the means he 
uses to keep himself in touch with the common people. 
Thus, when the schools of the city closed the fall term, a 
little before Christmas, a grand assemblage of all the 
pupils of all the schools was held in the Alemeda for the 
awarding of prizes, some 60,000 children being present. 
The park was elaborately decorated with flowers, and 
there were speeches and singing, etc., etc. Diaz presided, 
and with his own hand delivered the prizes to the proud 
and happy victors. 

The president has succeeded in securing the passage 
of a '* compulsory attendance " law for the City of Mexico, 
and it is rigidly enforced, the police of the city being tWe 
truant officers thereof. This calls for large additions to 
the school accommodations, but these are rapidly being 
met under the skillful management of this marvelous head 
of the Mexican government. 

In a word, Mexico is rapidly coming to the front 
educationally, as she is in other lines, and the magic nanic 
that has conjured all these changes among what was suji- 
posed to be a changeless people is Porfirio Diaz. Long 
life to him ! 



B ONLY." 71 



"THE ONLY.' 

Leaving Mexico to the tender mercies of her present 
president, I turn my "walks abroad" once more into a 
territory nearer home, where there are still multitudes of 
men and things to ** see " and talk about. In passing, 
however, there is one reflection that comes to me from a 
remark that I frequently heard while on Mexican soil : 
"What would become of Mexico if Diaz should die, and 
who would take his place ?" 

This is a question worth asking, surely, and one that 
the citizens of that republic need to keep well in mind ; 
but the thought occurs to me that, should Diaz suddenly 
be taken away, some one would be found who both could 
and would take his place, with many chances to one in 
favor of doing so successfully, great and able man though 
the present president surely is. 

Because, the fact is, that duplicates in any line of man- 
hood are not nearly so hard to find in these days as they 
used to be in the times when kings and other dignitaries 
were supposed to be " the only " and truly great. Democ- 
racy has given many a heretofore hidden human light a 
chance to shine in the world, and it is amazing how bril- 
liant some of these latent luminaries have become. | 

Indeed, it is no longer safe for anybody to declare 
himself as *' the only," for, as soon as he does so, some one 
not only steps up and contests the validity of his claim, 
but plucks his blushing honors from him before he has 
time to say " who are you ? " 

Why, I can remember, a couple of years or so ago, 
when Zimmerman made a "world's record" on his wheel, 



72 WALKS AND TALKS. 

which record was somewhere about 2:40, and we all envied 
him his marvelous feat, and wondered if there could ever 
be another like him ! But he had hardly got his wind 
after this greatest effort of his life, before along came 
Windle and lowered the record, a half-dozen seconds or 
so, at one fell stroke ; and then some one else put /mn into 
the background in the course of a week or ten days — some 
heretofore unheard of fellow from Omaha, or Minneapolis, 
or some other backwoods town in the wild and wooly 
west ; a Swec:.j, I think he was ; anyhow, one out of the 
great unknown — making a score clear and clean inside 
the two-minute notch, and no one dares now to predict 
how long even this limit will remain an ultimatum. 

And so far as that first ** world's record " is concerned, 
the one we all once gaped at, I saw a " scrub race " of 
boys, the other day, in which there were lads scarcely yet 
in their teens who eclipsed it by some seconds. 

Great is the stimulating power of a brilliant example 
in the presence of uncurbed human ambition, and a fair 
show and a free fight for everybody. 

Nay, more than this, the infection seems to have 
spread even to the brute creation, for Maude S. is no 
longer Queen of the Turf, and John L. has forfeited his 
right and title to the Championship of the World ! 

And so, I say, I suppose that, if Mr. Diaz should sud- 
denly die, some one would be found who would take his 
place, and perhaps eclipse even his brilliant and able 
record. "The Lord advances and ever advances; always 
the shadow in front, but always the reached hand of the 
Almighty moving up the standard." 

My reason for saying all this is the fact that, in my 
walks abroad, now and again, I have observed divers and 
sundry people (and among them not a few school teachers, 
hence this record in this particular place) who seem 



''THE ONLY." 73 

possessed with the idea that, in their several places and 
positions, they are "the only," and that everything with 
which they are now connected would at once go to the 
" demnition bow-wows " if, for any reason, they should be 
called upon, or compelled, to step down and out, so that 
the places which now know them should know them no 
more forever. But let these, et id oinne genus, grow modest 
in the presence of the facts which I have just noted. 

The truth is that there is no one man, or any set of 
men, who carry this world either on their shoulders or in 
their pockets ; and, in the main, the wheels will keep on 
turning, right along, just as God has set them to turn, and 
neither you, nor I, nor any of the rest of the neighbors, are 
such important parts of the plan that, if we should drop 
out, the whole concern would go to smash. 

I take it that the philosophy of all this lies in the 
fact that, in the eternal order of things, continual progress 
is the everlasting law of existence ; and, since this is so, 
whenever one becomes ** the only," he has reached a 
finality beyond which he will not go, because he does not 
care to do so — does not have to do so. And what one 
does not have to do in this world he is apt to leave pretty 
thoroughly alone. 

. And so this, " the only," state of mind leads any soul 
that it possesses into the ways of death. It makes one 
arrogant, domineering, bull-dozing. It is an attempt to 
nullify the second commandment, which says to mankind, 
"Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image," that is, 
something that never changes. And when one becomes 
" the only," in his own estimation or anybody's else, the 
graven image epoch has arrived ; and when that comes 
the sooner the turn is called the better. 

And it will be called, so let us be modest. 

Nearly every strike that has ever been inaugurated 



74 WALKS AND TALKS. 

has had, as a main factor in its theory of its ability to 
succeed, the idea that the strikers were " the only," and 
that no one could be found in all the world who could do 
the work that they were doing. The failure of the great 
bulk of these new phases of modern warfare shows how 
greatly mistaken the people are who are possessed of this 
fatuitous notion. 

Doubtless we are great, but we are not " the only " 
great. 



"SPECIALTY BUSINESS." 

I went to a play with a friend, a few evenings ago. 
and we saw .a lot of " Speciajty Business," as it was put 
down on the bill. I had never seen it before, and for the 
most part I enjoyed it very much. 

After the performance was over, my companion and 
myself went to his room, and there we fell to talking about 
what we had just seen. It transpired that he. had setn 
the company a great many times and was well posted on 
their *' business," and I very soon found that we had sat 
the evening through with entirely different degrees of 
pleasure. My friend remarked upon this, and finally went 
on to say : 

"That's one trouble with this 'specialty' work and 
why it so soon grows stale ; you see it a few times, and 
you see all there is in it, and after that it loses its charm 
for you. There wasn't a single new thing to me in that 
whole bill to-night, and 1 should have come out at the end 
of the first act if I hadn't seen that it was all new to you, 
and you were enjoying it so much." 

I thanked him for his kindness, and then he went on : 

" But, the fact is, this same sort of thing afflicts all 



" SPECIALTY B USINESSr 75 

actors, more or less. There was Barrett, who had his 
specialty of skipping up the incline of a rising inflection 
to the very top round of the ladder of tone, when he 
wished to produce a startling stage effect ; and he had a 
trick of perching on the very pinnacle of a climax till the 
audience had to 'shoo' him off with applause, as it were. 
And there was McCullough who, on the other hand, would 
go down, like McGinty, to the bottom of the vocal sea, 
whenever he was fathoming a strong dramatic situation. 
But these were tricks, both of them. And they all have 
them." 

xA.nd then he cited Clara Morris, who always threatens 
to " skewer her brains " with a hair pin, no matter what the 
play may be ; and Maggie Mitchell, who never fails to 
put the end of her bonnet string in her mouth ; and Pat 
Rooney, who would always preface an encore with an 
address to the orchestra : " Put me up a few bars while I 
catch my breath," — and so on, till our cigars were out, 
and we went to bed. 

After I got to bed, I fell to thinking of what my friend 
had said, and I very soon discovered that actors are not 
alone in this offending ; for I remembered that I had heard 
preachers who must needs plead guilty to the same charge, 
and some teachers, even, who would have trouble in 
proving an alibi if brought to trial on this count. 

I remembered, too, that I had heard Mr. Beecher use 
the same illustration four several times, on four different 
occasions, and each time when speaking on a theme en- 
tirely different from that which formed the subject of his 
discourse when I heard him use the figure before. 

And then I became dimly conscious of certain sins of 
my own, of a similar nature ; but the subject was not 
pleasant ; and as I always like to go to sleep happy, I 
did my best to think of something else, and succeeded 



76 WALKS AND TALKS. 

so well that I was shortly dreaming as an honest man 
should. 

The next day I went to a teachers' institute in a little, 
common-size country town, and, strange to say, I came 
across the same thing there again. 

The institute was made up of a wholesome and healthy 
lot of country school teachers, marms and masters, and 
was much of the same sort as you can hit upon almost 
any Saturday, between September and June, in any one 
of the forty-four states of this glorious Union of ours. 

The county superintendent was in charge, and he was 
ably flanked by a professor who has done institute work 
for several years. The latter was, of course, in the very 
nature of things, " cocked and primed " for the occasion, 
which was all very well and good ; but before I had sat in 
his presence five minutes I found he was working his 
** specialty business" for all that it was worth, and more, 
too. But I didn't object to this so much, remembering 
how, the night before, I had come to the conclusion that 
the disease was wide-spread. 

Before long, however, I found myself rebelling against 
what was going on, and I herewith state, in open meeting, 
why I did so, though it grieves me to tell it just as it was. 

I very soon found that this conductor was working /«5 
specialty far beyond the limits utilized by either actors or 
preachers, or what not ; and this is how he did it. He not 
only made his little pets do service to show to thQ best 
advantage his own attainments, but he strove to heighten 
this effect by making the same a means for humbling and 
belittling the real powers and abilities of the group of 
well-meaning people he was performing before. 

And that ** riled " me, and made me look further in 
the same direction. And I say plainly that I have found 
this transgression much more common than it ought to 



" SPECIALTY B USINESS," 77 

be, especially among as good a set of men and women as 
institute conductors generally are. 

Why, the other day I came across a case of this kind 
that, if it had gone a little further, would have been a 
legitimate field for the exercise of the functions of that 
officer of the law whose business it is to prevent cruelty 
to animals. 

The "conductor" was doing one of his "specialty 
acts" in great form, it being, surely, his thousandth per- 
formance ; and, having concluded, he called on an un- 
sophisticated country girl, who had been doing her level 
best with her first school for three months, and was still 
greatly worried as to which was ahead, herself or the " big 
scholar" — he called on her to " duplicate the bill," as it 
were ! And when she, poor thing, arose and made a stag- 
ger at it, he so quizzed, and twitted her, and snubbed her 
generally, all along the line, that she finally gave up in 
despair ; and, burying her rather fat and shame-flushed 
face in her hands, she sat down and cried. 

Honestly, I almost wondered that the chivalrous, 
stout fellows who sat on the other side of the room and 
saw it all, did'nt put the perpetrator of the deed out of 
doors. 

I grant (thank heaven I can honestly do so) that this 
case was an extreme one, but it was one of the things I 
saw in my " walks abroad," and I set it down seriatim, 
verbatim, in statu quo. I remark, though, that from my 
observations I find that cases approaching this one in un- 
pleasantness are not anywhere near as infrequent as they 
should be in this free and independent land of ours. They 
should be less frequent still. As Mr. Shakespeare says, 
** reform it altogether." 

Because, the truth is, when you come to look close, a 
•' specialty act " is not the cleverest thing in the world, 



78 WALKS AND TALKS. 

after all, either for the performer or the spectator. So far 
as the former is concerned, if long indulged in, it tends to 
paralyze the nerve of fresh and original thought and 
endeavor, and so gradually debilitates its victim. And 
for the latter, it is apt to discourage him, especially when 
his own crude efforts are brought into strong contrast with 
the finished performance of a cunning, not to say crafty, 
expert. 

Above all, the snobbishness of the fad should be 
lopped off, for, truly, there aren't any " av uz all," as 
Father Tom would say, who have so very much to boast 
of by way of attainment, specialties and all ; and even 
what we have is very soon learned by those who see us, 
day after day ! 

Which puts me in mind of the remark of an Irish 
friend of mine. He used to be very fond of hearing the 
Bishop preach, and alwa}'s went to service when that dig- 
nitary held forth. I met him on the street the other 
Sunday, though, when I knew the Bishop was preaching, 
and asked him why he wasn't in his pew ? To which he 
replied : 

"Troth, I don't go to hear the l^ishop ony more.'' 

"Why! what's the matter ?" I said. "You haven't 
gone back on a good man have you ?" 

" No," he answered, " but it's the truth I'm tcllin' 
you, when you've heard the Bishop a half-dozen times a// 
after that is variations ! ' ' 



"EXAMS." 79 



" EXAMS." 

speaking of "variations," and of the fact that, after 
all, there are few men who have such an extended reper- 
toire that they can always favor their audience with a new 
tune; while, for the most part, the great bulk of mankind 
have only one or two songs apiece, which are all that 
nature ever pitched their voices to sing, and which they 
have to sing over and over again, if they sing at all — I 
say, all this reminds me that it is one of the most difficult 
things in the world to size a man up and determine how 
much there really is in him, by any ordinary tests of 
measurements that one can arbitrarily bring to bear upon 
him. 

This is especially true if the measurer insists on using 
his own particular yardstick (which, ten chances to one, 
is only his own particular *' rule of thumb " ) upon every 
victim that he would fain take the dimensions of. 

My reason for making this observation just here is, 
that I came across a book the other day which is only 
" one more of the same sort " that needs to be " called 
down/' if I may use a stage term in these classic pages. 

The book is called a " Volume " ( why not a volley? ) 
"of Test Questions," and its special mission is set forth in 
its preface, which declares that it is " designed to fill a 
long felt want ( what a blessing to preface writers a long 
felt want is) among teachers who are preparing to pass 
an examination for a State Certificate." 

Now here is richness, as Squeers would say. I open 
the "volume" to find it filled, page after page, with ten' 



80 WALKS AND TALKS. 

thousand ( the author assures me on the title page that 
there are ten thousand, and I take his word for it without 
stopping to count ) disjointed conundrums, with answers 
attached. The great bulk of the "questions" will per- 
haps average a short line apiece; and many of the 
" answers " are equally brief; and together they cover 
about all that has happened "since the pre-historic man 
sat chattering in his cave, gnaw^ing the bones of his slain 
adversary. 

(Those old ancestors of ours were not without resour- 
ces for happiness, were they?) 

Others of the answers are longer, to be sure, and 
many of this class are as unsatisfactory as they are exten- 
ded. This is not the fault of the answers, however, but of 
the questions that give rise to them. These are so wide- 
extended that, in many cases, whole volumes have already 
been written in answer to them without so much as 
straightening out a single crook of the interrogation 
marks that forever stand just where these " posers " leave 
off! 

And yet this volume disposes of such questions in a 
paragraph, and with as much positiveness as though it 
were giving the date of the last expiring breath of some 
never-before-heard-of sutler, who perished miserabl)-, 
while foraging with a company of filibusters in a little 7 
by 9 island of the Polynesian group — for it must be 
understood that this "volune " is especially strong in its 
expiring-breath department ! 

Here, then, are a few of the questions that arc answer- 
ed so glibly in the pages before me, but which would be 
as much unanswered as ever, for me, should I go into a 
school-room to teach to-morrow morning! 

" How is aesthetical culture l?est secured? what its 
value ? 



"EXAMS." 81 

"To what was Arnold's success as a teacher due?" 
Aye, truly, to what? 

*' How develop grace, strength, and beauty in pu- 
pils?" If we only could! 

"How can contrary pupils be managed?" Yea, 
verily, how can they? There are teachers who can do it, 
but I never saw one who could tell me, or anybody else, 
/tow he did it, so that I or anybody else could do it as he 
did. 

But this book tells! 

I wonder if, in a state examination, the candidate 
should write this answer out, just as it is on the page be- 
fore me, he would be marked lo on that point! 

*' How secure good, and avoid the evil, of praise and 
blame?" I quote verbatim. Surely the only answer that 
could be given to this question is the one printed in the 
book; but I am pained to say that even this is less clear 
than the question that preceeds it! 

"What is the use of questions and answers?" Hear! 
Hear! 

■''How can the curiosity of children be satisfied?" 
Honest! that question is in this hooiky and there is a printed 
answer attached! Need anything more be said? Can any- 
thing more be said? 

And then I find such quantities of unusual and 
out-of-the-way questions strewn all through the pages, as: 

"What is Swedenborgianism? " 

" What principles are taught in ' Levana? ' " 

" What did Milton say about boys?" 

Thus far I have failed to find in the interrogatories 

"Who struck Pat Murphy?" and "Where did McGinty 

go down into the sea?" but I shall write the author and 

ask him to embody these important questions in the next 

edition. 
6 



§2 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Now, does it seem possible that such questions as 
these should be set down as the stuff wherewithal to 
gorge one's self preparatory to an examination for any- 
thing, anywhere, to say nothing of an examination regard- 
ing one's ability to teach school? 

And yet, here is the book before me, and the reader 
is assure that if he will me^jwrize these questions ajid answers 
— I suppose the whole io,000 — he will then be "prepar- 
ed " to go before the Board of Examiners and success- 
fully compete for that much coveted bit of paper, a State 
Certificate! 

Shades of Mnemosyne, where is Loisette! 

Still this book is not so very much worse than others 
of its kind, or than a good many people who have to ex- 
amine candidates for certificates, and for college and 
what not. It is so easy, and such a temptation to ask, 
unusual or unanswerable, questions! I wonder if there 
isn't some special faculty of meanness in us all that makes 
us like to " knock out," so to speak, almost anybody 
whom we get where we can question him at will? 

Speaking of this, a friend of mine, who had recently 
passed an examination, said, in view of the unusual and 
irrelevant questions that were asked him, " I should like 
to turn the tables on my examiner and ask him questions 
for awhile!" 

"And what would you have asked him?" I said. 

"Oh, I'd have given him some easy ones — questions 
that quantities of boys ten years old can answer, but 
which would have been posers to him." 

"For instance?" I said. 

"Well," he replied, "How would these do for start- 
ers: " 

"What is blacklash, and how would you take it up?" 

" How would you upset a key? " 



" EXAMS." 83 

" Define template and contemplate, and show the 
difference between them!" 

** What is the meaning of f. o. b.; 30, 3 off 10? " 

Somehow I secretly wished that he could have taken 
a turn-about with his interrogator, and if he could have 
kept it up, as above, I should like to lay two to one in his 
favor. 

And yet I find, upon looking up the answers to 
these questions, that they are not so very unusual after all. 
The third one is slightly tricky, but I've seen scores that 
were more so, on "really truly" examination lists. 

And this brings me back to my starting point, namely, 
that it is a very difficult thing to size a man up, and fairly 
determine what there is in him, by any arbitrary methods 
that can be brought to bear upon him. The only way I 
know of, that amounts to anything, is to see him actually 
at ivGvk in the field, or calling, he claims to be fitted to 
labor in. 

And here is where it seems to me, " the children of 
this world are wiser than the children of light," counting 
teachers as *' the parties of the second part " in the above 
combination. 

For, if one goes to a bank, or a mill, or a store, and 
asks for a position, there isn't a banker, or a master me- 
chanic, or a merchant, who would ever think of giving 
the applicant a written examination on odds and ends 
"from Adam down," to test his efficiency. 

Examined, the person would surely be, but the ques- 
tions would be few and pointed. "What experience have 
you had in a position similar to the one you seek? " would 
cover nearly all the ground outside the question of char- 
acter. 

And is not this good common sense, and would it 
not work as well in determining the fitness of teachers as 



84 WALKS AND TALKS. 

of book-keepers, mechanics and clerks? Let any expert 
teacher talk with a candidate for fifteen minutes, and he 
can tell his fitness to teach far better than as though he 
should ask, and the fellow should answer all the io,000 
questions in the book before me. 

Indeed, there are men who might be able to answer 
all these ten thousand questions, and yet who could not 
teach a country school successfully. 

All of which means that f/ie ability to answer questions is 
but a very slight indication of one' s ability to teach school. 

And as for state examinations, and the issuing of 
state certificates, why should not this be put into the hands 
of a state Board of Examiners, whose business it should 
be to visit, personally, the applicant, and see him with 
his every-day clothes on, at work in his own school-room? 
This would be a test direct, pointed, vital. It would 
mean a thousand fold more than any document can possi- 
bly mean under present methods, for it would have a per- 
sonality behind it that would be of untold power. 

Why! I would a hundred times rather "try for a state 
certificate " by having a committee sit in personal judg- 
ment on my work as a teacher, than by filling myself up 
with any *' ten thousand test questions" that ever were 
made, and seeing how many of them I could carry to the 
examination table without spilling; and there, in solemn 
silence, unload a few of them upon foolscap ( good name 
that) as a voucher for my ability as a teacher! 

And heaven knows I should stand a better show for 
getting what I sought by the first method than by the last. 
For, with due modesty let me say that I consider it not 
impossible that I might acquire the art of teaching school 
so as to win the approval of those who were capable of 
judging what creditable teaching is; but to answer, on 
foolscap, the questions that are now given to a candidate 



''EXAM 8 r 85 

for a state certificate — ] couldn't do it to save my life. 

And what is more, I couldn't learn to do it. It isn't 
in me. 

And yet the fault is not in my ability /<? teach. It has 
nothing whatever to do with that. The trouble lies in 
another quarter, namely, in my memory. I haven't the 
7nemory for detail that one must have who successfully 
passes the examinations for the highest honors among, 
teachers. 

And what is true in my case is just as true of many 
men and women who have been successfully teaching for 
years. We all know these people. They are among the 
best teachers to be found anywhere, and there is not the 
shadow of a doubt as to their ability to fill, with credit to 
themselves and benefit to their patrons, any position in 
our public schools. 

And yet these teachers cannot hold a state certificate 
to this effect, because, forsooth, they have not the ability 
to cram their memories with dry details and disgorge 
them on call. 

And right here lies the chief offense of all, namely, 
that our present method of examination for this high 
honor is on a wrong basis, in that it is, almost entirely, a 
memory test^ while the possession of m?teino?iic ability is no 
proof whatever ofo?ies real merit as a school teacher. 

Surely these things ought not longer so to be in a 
nation that stands so well toward the front of the edca- 
tional line as does the United States. 

I have not space to go into the details of the working 
of such a method as I have hinted at, nor is there need 
that I do so; for 1 know the educational fraternity of this 
country well enough to know that they can work such a 
plan out to a successful issue, if once they undertake to 
do it; and in justice to themselves they ought to labor to 



86 WALKS AND TALKS. 

make the test of the highest ability in their ranks of a 
kind that would really measure such ability, and not let it 
remain what it is now — a mere trial of the strength of a 
faculty that has next to nothing to do with real worth in 
the school room. 

Why not have this issue raised at the National 
Teachers' Association, and thoroughly discussed by that 
honorable body? Anyhow, something ought to be done 
about it, for it is a live issue, and one that is of vital in- 
terest to every genuine teacher in our beloved common- 
wealth. 

Such a plan might work sad havoc with ten-thousand- 
test-question volumes, and their like, but the winds would 
blow, and the world roll around, even if these should be 
thrown into the waste basket, where they really belong. 



RATS. 

"Now, chentlemen, efery man must make a liefln* 
some vay, und I makes mine by rats! I don't got so werry 
rich by it, but I chenerally manage to got along butty 
veil. Der vay I makes it, I gives a rat show; und I don't 
sharge any man a cent to see it; but ven he sees it, off he 
likes it, he can gif my rats vat he bleases, und ve vill gone 
about our beezness. 

"Now, off you stands a leedle pack, chentlemen — 
poys, got back on der sidevalk ! — I show you vot I got 
in dis pox." 

He was a grimy-faced Bohemian, and while he was 
making the little speech just quoted, he stood in the open 
street, a few feet from the curbstone, and immediately in 



BATS. 87 

front of the postoffice, to which the people were flocking 
for their morning mail. 

While he spoke, a crowd of curious men and boys 
gathered about, and by the time he had finished his open- 
ing remarks they were beginning to press in upon him 
quite closely. He waved them back to the sidewalk, and 
then proceeded to make ready for his performance. 

He first spread out a tripod which stood about shoul- 
der high, and on this placed an oblong box which was 
about two feet long, one foot wide and perhaps nine 
inches high. From one end of this box he rigged an ex- 
tension in the shape of a platform about four feet long 
and a foot wide. This was the stage upon which his actors 
were presently to appear, and on which their performance 
was to be given. 

Having completed these arrangements, he opened the 
end of the box which was nearest the platform. Instantly 
there was a rusli from within, and a dozen or more of rats 
poured themselves out on the narrow stage. They were 
of all ages and sizes, some gray and some white,' but all 
— rats. They scurried along the board and climbed ovt» 
the box, sniffing the air, and now and then stopping to 
gaze at the crowd. 

Presently some of them began to climb over the edge 
of the box and to let themselves down to the ground by 
means of the legs of the tripod. Once on terra firma, 
they scampered over the paving stones and ran toward 
the people standing about, who immediately began to 
retreat. Then the master of ceremonies spoke again, this 
time addressing the rats: 

" Ha ! ha ! take care dere ! Don't schare der beople's ! 
Come ! Come ! " And at this request the rats ran back 
to where their master stood and formed in a circle all 
about him. Then he again addressed the crowd: 



88 WALKS AND TALKS. 

" Nein ! Nein ! goot beoples, dose rats vouldn't hurt 
nopody. I deach dem better manners as dat. See ! " 

He lifted his hands, and at the sign the rats began to 
clamber up his legs. They ran all over him. Some 
crawled into his pockets and presently came forth again 
with bits of bread or cheese that they had found there. 
Some ran under his coat and came creeping out from 
beneath his coat collar. He took first one and then 
another in his hand, talking to them and the crowd alter- 
nately, alwajs in an easy, good natured way that seemed 
to please both his two-legged and his foiir-legged hearers. 

"Und now ve vill gif der beople's a leedle show, eh ! 
Come, Blondin, und let me see off you can valk dot tight 
rope across Niagara yet !" 

He had stretched a line from a pole at the further end 
of the little platform to a similar one at the further end 
of the box. The distance was about six feet, and the 
line was as large as your finger. 

Then the rat called Blondin, climbed up one of the 
poles and mounted the rope. He cautiously crept across 
it from end to end, having done which he ran down the 
other pole to the platform, sniffed toward the crowd and 
then ambled away into the box, much as a pretty " elocu- 
tionist reader " would smile, and make a little bow, and 
then trot off into the wings of the stage after she had 
made a hit with the house and while the clapping of hands 
was at its height ! 

This was the ''opening," and after it there followed 
much more that was quite as clever. The rats marched 
across the platform in single file, and by twos and fours, 
even as we have seen the Knights of this or that parade 
themselves on Saint somebody's day. One fired a pistol 
and' another rang a bell, while the third turned a crank of 
a small music box. It was a good show, and well worth 



BATS. 89 

the pennies, nickels and dimes that were presently sought 
from the crowd in a novel way, as the master of cere- 
monies said: 

" Now, chentlemen, you haf see vot my rats can done, 
und I dink you vill gif dem rats someding to vill der 
stomachs mit, eh? And vat you vill gif, yoost drow it on 
der ground, und dose rats vill dake care of it, eh! poys?" 

Some one threw a nickel into the street, and imme- 
diately one of the rats galloped away and picked it up 
with his mouth, while others of the lot sniffed toward the 
crowd, their little eyes glittering as they watched for a 
duplicate of the money-throwing performance. It was 
great sport, and for several minutes there was a generous 
shower of small coins which the rats took care of as fast 
as they fell. They brought all the money to the master, 
who did "impetticose the gratility " after a manner which 
was worthy of Touchstone himself. 

Finally everybody seemed to have enough for that 
time — crowd, rats, master and all — and the show was 
over. The rats returned to their box, one and all, and 
were shut into it; the platform was taken down, the tripod 
folded up, and each went his way. 

I was always fond of curious shows, and I stood this 
one through to the end with great satisfaction. When it 
was all over, and the proprietor had folded his traps and 
was silently stealing away, I followed him for a little dis- 
tance to see what next. 

For I hardly knew which to marvel at most, the man 
or his beasts; and it seemed to me that who could do so 
much could also do much more, and I wanted to see it all. 

The fellow went a little ways up-town, and then 
turned off on a by-street, where he drew up under the 
shade of a large tree, set his box on the ground* seated 



90 WALKS AND TALKS. 

himself beside it and began feeding his performers. The 
boys followed him, and we all stood about watching. 

** Presently my soul grew stronger," as did Mr. Poe's 
when he had a raven instead of a rat to make him fear- 
some, and I ventured to address a remark to the manager 
of the combination, as follows: 

" How long have you been in this business, sir?" 

And to me he replied: "Not so werry long mit rats; 
but always I can do vot I likes mit animals of all ginds ! 
I vas a long dime mit horses und dogs, but apout fife years 
ago I try rats, und I likes it pedder." 

"Where do you get your rats?" I asked. 

"Oh, efcry blace I go," he answered. " I don't kee;p 
a rat so werry long, so I haf to got new vones all de dime." 

"Why can't you keep them?" I asked. "Do they 
run away? ' 

"Oh, no!" he replied. "My rats nefer runs avay ! 
But I vorks my rats puddy hardt, und der box don't bin 
so werry big, und — oh, veil, nodding liffs so zverry long off 
you do ok dem avayjrom vere dey pelongsf 

" How long will a rat live ? " said I. 

" Dot derpends on ver he is, und off he don't get 
caught ! Now, off a rat has a goot korn grib to liff in, 
und don't get caught, he liffs — oh, vel, fife, seex, ten 
years! But its a puddy goot rat as lasdst me seex mondh." 

" How long does it take you to teach them their 
tricks?" I queried. 

" Oh, veil, I couldn't tole you dat ogzackly. // der~ 
pends on der rat! Now off 1 got a goot, bright rat, I deach 
him to do vot he vill learn in two, dree days. But off I 
got a rat is a tam fool (this man was a worldling, and he 
spoke the vernacular), veil, I could nefer teach him 
nodding ! " 



BATS. 91 

"But," I said, "if a rat is bright can you teach him 
anything you choose?" 

"Oh, no!" he replied. ^' Some rats vill learn so7ne 
dings, und some iidder rats vill learn some udder dings, Und 
dots a funny ding apout dat ! Yon can't always dell py der 
looks of a rat y oast vot he vill learn!'' and as he said this he 
spoke to a rat that was gnawing a bone: 

" Cheneral Grant, come here ! " 

The rat addressed caught up the bone and dragged it 
over to where the man sat, who then continued, as he 
picked the rodent up and stroked him with his hand: 

" Now, I galls dis rat Cheneral Grant pecause he 
shoots der gun. I try more as feefty rats pefore I gets 
von dot vill shoot a gun. Und ven I gets dis veller, I 
tries to make him valk der rope. Der Blondin vot I got 
dot dime, he vas got his leg broke, und I vants a rat to 
took his blace. But I don't could make him valk a rope 
von leedle bit. // vos not in him to do someding like dot J 

" Vel, den I try him mit der gun, und py chiminy he 
make him go right avay ! He likes it ! He vill shoot all 
der dime off I let him ! Eh, Cheneral !" And he chucked 
the rat under the chin as it jumped off his hand and re- 
turned to its bone again. 

Just at this moment a great lubberly rat came rolling 
up towards the " Cheneral." He seized his military 
brother by the scruff of the neck, and with an easy toss 
sent him spinning through the air, the bone falling to the 
lot of the bulldozer in the fray. But the master came to 
the rescue, and with a smart rap he made the victor givQ 
up his spoil, while he went on, a little excitedly, to 
explain : 

"Now, dot rat," indicating the big one he had just 
called to order, " I callsjohn L. SuUifan ! He don't know 
nodding but viting, und you don't nefer could deach him 



92 WALKS AND TALKS. 

nodding else! / <^w/V pelieve Got AhnigJidy could effer 
deach dot rat nodding but viting I But he, can vight ! Py 
chiminy ! he licks any udder rat I effer see ! Dot's vy I 
geeps him! Some dimes some vellers dey likes to have a 
rat-vight. I don't myself like it so werry much, but I chust 
geeps John L. Sullifan for dem fellers, und he can vip all 
de rats dey can pring him. Dot's all he vos goot for ! " 

We all laughed, and he continued : ** But all rats 
don't been dot vay. Patti ! Patti ! " he called. 

A plump little, fine-haired rat responded to his call, 
and, leaving the group, climbed into his hand, while he 
said : " Dot's der rat vot blays der moosic-box. Und she 
like it, too, eh, Patti ?" 

The little creature stood on its hind legs as he spoke, 
and began moving one of its fore-paws round and round, 
as if turning a crank, while her master went on : 

" Eh, you see, she vant to tole me to got der moosic- 
pox. No, no ! not now, leedle gal. Go ead your preak- 
fast now, und ven ve gif anodder show, den you blays 
again." 

He put her on the ground, and she ran away into the 
crowd of her brethren and sisters. 

"And so," I said, " I understand that you can't teach 
any rat to do anything you happen to want him to learn to 
do?" 

'* Oh, nein, nein ! " he replied. " You can't only deach 
a rat to do I'ot he vos made to do I Und ven a man is a goot 
rat-deacher, he knows dot ding, und he von't dry to deach 
a rat vot he cant learn ./ " 

" Und dot is yoost der tifference between a goot rat-deacher 
und a shool-deache? !'' he added. "A shool-deacher, he 
dinks he can deach any shild anyding vot he bleases. 
But he couldn't do id ! Shildren is yoost like rats ! Some 
vill learn von ding, und some vill learn anoder ding, mid dot's 



" dot:' 93 

a goot shool-deacher dot knows dot ding, und vorks dot vay / " 

" Do you suppose*/ could ever learn to teach rats as 
you do ?" I faltered. 

The man eyed me a moment, and then said : " No ! 
you couldn't do it ! You vasn't der right kint off a man ! 
Ve7i a mayi makes a goot rat-deacher he vos got to been born 
yoost on burpose for dot beezness, und I don t peleef you vos born 
dot vay ! ' ' 

The boys laughed, and I think they had a right to. 
Then we all went away. 

It was an old Roman who said, Poeta nascitur non fit. 
A modern American has said : *' Culture can increase the 
size, quality and flavor, but it cannot change the kind ! " 

When will our public school managers learn the lesson 
and act accordingly ? 



"DOT." 

1 have a friend who often says to me when we meet, 
*' If you've got anything good about you, pass it around! " 
I happen to have something good about me to-day, and 
most gladly do I proceed to share it. 

This something is in the shape of a letter. It was 
never meant for the public eye, and so you will please con- 
sider it as strictly inter nos. The man who wrote it is the 
most modest man I ever knew, but the story he tells is so 
good that I have finally persuaded him to let you read 
what he wrote just to me, as follows. He says: 

" This is the first leisure moment I have had since we got back, 
and I will improve it by telling you something of our trip. We hoped 
to see you on our way home, but the train was away late, and we 
hardly expected you to sit up for us. However, late as we were, the 



94 WALKS AND TALKS. 

conductor on the other road knew we were coming, and /itr held his 
train for us forty minutes. 

And that is only a sample of the kind of treatment we received 
all along the way. Everywhere, going and coming, and at the Capi- 
tol, people seemed to vie with each other in trying to minister to the 
enjoyment of the clean, bright-looking set of young people I had 
with me. 

" I remember that you once said, when you were here,, that I 
ought to be a proud man among my school children, and I can tell 
you, without boasting, that my heart swelled not a little {perhaps my 
head, too) at the many compliments upon the appearance and be- 
havior of the pupils, from the strangers with whom we came in con- 
tact. 

" There were an even fifty of us — all my high school pupils — 
who left here Thursday morning at 3 o'clock, and we got back at 
about the same hour on Saturday morning. Of course, the children 
were pretty tired when we got home, but ' Dot ' was along and had 
mothered them all so carefully that, after a good sleep, they every 
one came up as well as ever." 

( I take my hat off, here, ladies and gentlemen, and 
reverently explain that " Dot " is the little woman who 
sits at the table opposite the good man who wrote this 
letter. Her true name is Rebecca, but she never grew 
quite tall enough to match the ideal in person, either of 
the stately Hebrew woman who lighted off her camel to 
meet Isaac in the field, or that other Rebecca whom Sir 
Walter has made famous; so her husband just calls her 
" Dot," and that tells the whole story. 

I should like to stop right here, though, and say a 
word or two about her. 

She is a born mother, and one who has never had to 
adopt lap dogs to fill the places at her table! She has 
borne six children. Four of these yet remain to call her 
blessed, and two have " gone before." But there is mother 
enough in her, you will observe, to meet the felt wants of 
fifty boys and girls who are off on a two-day's outing. 

She is a very quiet little woman. You would hardly 



*'DOTr 95 

no'tice her among a crowd of grand ladies, and I never 
heard of her being president of anything; but she is a 
queen in her own home, and that is what counts, according 
to my way of thinking. Those fifty children think so, too, 
and that is what counts in the town where her husband 
is teaching! 

But I started out to let the letter tell the story.) 

'* You want to know what we had planned for the trip and how 
it panned out. 

" Well, in the first place, the plan was very simple. While I was 
at the capitol, during the holidays, it occurred to me what an educa- 
tion it would be for our boys and girls to see that truly fine building, 
with its elegantly finished halls and offices; its historical and symbo- 
lical paintings and reliefs and statuary; how much of reality it would 
put into their history study and into their evcry-day reading, if they 
could see our various state officers at work in their offices; and above 
alJ, to see the legislature in regular session, carrying on its actual 
work of law-making. 

" Then there were the museums, and the libraries, and the grand 
stairway, and the magnificent building itself. 

" Besides this, we had planned only for a visit to the Lincoln 
•Monument and the Lincoln homestead. There was enough, however, 
it seemed to me, for a two day's jaunt, and I kept thinking and 
thinking how much the children would enjoy it and hov/ much good 
it would do them. 

'* Well, somehow the idea stuck to me, and when 1 got home I 
wrote to the agent of the railroad for rates. The first reply was dis- 
couraging, for it would have made the cost of the round trip, hotel 
fare and all, about $6.50 each. This was too much, for where there 
were two or three from a family, or, in some cases if only one, the 
cost would have shut out the very ones I wanted most should be ben- 
efited by the plan. 

" Here was one of the times when I wished I were rich enough to 
just put my hand down in my pocket and haul out enough to pay the 
children's way; but I couldn't, and there was no use fretting. 

Yet the idea had taken such a hold on me that I couldn't drop it. 
I stated the case to some of our good people, and told them that the 
whole expense would be somewhere about $250. Almost to my sur- 



96 WALKS AND TALKS. 

prise one after another said ' I'll put in $io,' and ' I will,' and ' I will,' 
until, in one afternoon I had the first hundred dollars in sight. 

' It took a good deal of walking and talking to get it all, but I 
got it, and the children have had their trip and there is nearly a dol- 
lar left! 

" After a good deal of correspondence, I succeeded in getting 
the railroad fare reduced so that the whole cost, per capita^ for rail- 
road fare, hotel fare, street car fare, and admission to Lincoln's Mon- 
ument, altogether, was only I5. 19. After a good deal of enjoyment 
in anticipation, we started, made the whole trip in safety, delivered 
the young folks to their parents, and checked them off. 

" Thus ended my responsibility for them. 

" How did it pan out? Well, in the first place, I suppose it would 
have been impossible to chock any more solid enjoyment into those 
two days of the children's lives with anything less than a ten-ton pile 
driver. They just enjoyed every minute of it, and so did I. Nor has 
there been any reaction. I never saw them better natured and rr^ore 
studious than they are this week. 

" That isn't all; we know each other bettter, and I am, as I said, 
prouder of them than ever before, Then, too, some little traits crop- 
ped out here and there, that I shall keep in mind and deal with in a 
sort of fatherly way when the proper opportunities come, from time 
to time! 

" We were fortunate in striking a very interesting session of the 
House. An important bill was coming up. The children saw the 
dallying over the reading of the journal — as we afterwards learned 
to kill time and pass the introduction of the bill over into the next 
week. 

" After a number of bills had been introduced and referred to 
their appropriate committees, we got a glimpse of a little political 
fine work. The bill in question was supposed to be in the hands of 
a man whose name was way down in the R's, and the opponents of 
it expected to adjourn the session long before his name could be 
reached in the call. But during the morning the bill was put in 
charge of a Mr. Fowler — up in the F's you see— who plumped the 
bill in upon the astonished House, and asked unanimous consent to 
have it passed to first reading without going to a committee. 

"Objection being made, he, without yielding the floor, moved a 
suspension of the rules to the same purpose. 

After some sparring, the vote was taken, the rules suspended, 
and the bill read for the first time and placed on the calendar for 



'•DOT/' 97 

second reading. Since our return we are all alive and on the look 
out to watch the fate of that bill. We all have 9 personal interest in 
it now, and shall watch it to its final fate. 

" I speak of this so minutely, because it shows, better than I can 
tell in any other way, how the * Idea ' of the trip was realized. I did 
not ask the children to carry note books and use their pencils; I just 
let them go and use their eyes and their ears. This they did, and I 
am satisfied. They show it by their talk. 

"Of course there were ever so many things connected with the 
trip that I should like to tell you of, but I haven't time to write them 
out, here and now. I only add that, on the way down, the route 
agent took the boys and girls, in small squads, into the mail car and 
let them see how mail is ' thrown.* 

" Then, for the evening that we were in the city, I arranged with 
some friends of mine who live there to entertain the young people at 
their home. This they did in elegant style, and it was a most excel- 
lent experience for the boys and girls. 

" Besides this there was the ride there and back, the country and 
cities we passed through, the jostling against people which all this 
necessitated, and, by far from being least of all, the stay at the hotel, 
and the ordering for the first time for many of them, of a meal from 
a bill of fare. 

" Very simple things, all these, to be sure, but I cannot help be- 
lieving that the experiences of these two days have done more tlian 
months of mere school-going could do toward fitting these children 
to take a hold on the life they are destined to live. I counted that 
the trip would put new life and meaning into their studies and all 
their school work when they got home again, and I am certain that it 
has done all that and more too. 

"To be sure, if I had to lead out my flock again I see many 
places where I could improve the management of such a trip. Who 
couldn't? And yet, take it all in all, I am pretty well satisfied, and 
so are the children, and so are their parents and friends who furnish- 
ed the wherewithal for the outing. What more could I ask?" 

There, that is the letter, and it struck me as one of 
the best things I have seen or known about for many a 
day. 

Of course there is nothing so very great about it all — 



98 WALKS AND TALKS. 

that is, great when measured by a world-wide-renown tape 
line ; but the longer I live the better I know that it is not 
what makes "all the world wonder" that is of value to 
you and to me. 

You see, there are so many folks in the world ; and, 
take them altogether, they care so little for things — for 
what you and I do, any how. 

I am never so lonesome as when I am in a big city, 
where there are thousands and thousands of people all 
about me, not one of whom I know, not one who knows or 
cares for me. 

I am sure that the next edition of the " History of the 
World, from the Beginning to the Present Time," will 
make no mention of the incident which the above-quoted 
letter describes. But, for all that, I would rather have 
such a chapter as this written in my Book of Life than to 
have pages and pages devoted to me in any World's His- 
tory that ever went to press. 

Perhaps I get this feeling from what I read between 
the lines of this letter, and which I am sure is there for any 
one to read who has eyes to see what there really is on the 
pages before me. 

That little touch about '* Dot's being along," concern- 
ing which I have already remarked (and you must re- 
member that this letter was not penned in any studied 
way — it was never written for effect. I have quoted it 
just as it came to me, fresh from the warm and enthusi- 
astic heart of the man who wrote it, and who never 
dreamed, when writing it, that yon would ever see it — 
that would have spoiled all.) 

How many pages do you think it would take to tell 
all that is said in those three words, " Dot was along ? " 

Put over against them the description even of a great 
inauguration ball, and see if those three little words do 



"DOTr 99 

not mean more to ^ou than all the columns of description 
about that magnificent affair ? I have nothing to say 
against the ball. It was all right, in its place. But I read 
in the paper for that day an incident connected with the 
inauguration in Washington which means more to me (and 
I believe to all the people in this country, as well) than 
all else that took place on that great occasion. 

And this is what I read : "Just before the President 
left the White House to go to the Capitol to take the oath 
of office, after he had said a2i revoir to the company of 
notable personages who had assembled to see him off, his 
wife called him back for a moment, and, throwing her arms 
around his neck, kissed him (even if all the people did 
see), and, with happy and hopeful tears in her eyes said, 
*God bless you, my husband, and Godspeed.' " 

And I am here to state that if the president is the 
man I take him to be, he prizes that loving tribute from 
his wife more than all the honors that were showered 
upon him during the entire inauguration ceremonies and 
festivities. Give us a nation full of wives and mothers 
like "Dot" and the mistress of the White House (and 
they are of the same quality, though one lives in state and 
the other is only a teacher's wife), and we will weather 
through, and successfully settle the silver question, and 
the tariff issue, and all the other ills that may rise up to 
trouble this great nation of ours. 

If only "Dot is along" it will come out all right, 
somehow, and I know it. 

And then there is that quiet little passage: "Besides 
this, we know each other better than we did before ; and 
then, too, some little traits have cropped out, here and 
there, that I shall keep in mind and deal with in a sort of 
fatherly way, when proper opportunities come, from time 
to time 1 " 



100 WALKS AND TALKS. 

How many pages more would it take to write out all 
that is between ^/lose lines ? 

Truly, happy is that teacher that can do the like of 
this, and happy is that pupil who has a teacher that can 
deal with him in a fatherly way as opportunities offer ! 

What wonder that Mr. Emerson told his daughter 
that he didn't care w/iat she studied, but that he did care 
with whom she studied ! 

And, for my part, I would a thousand times rather 
have a child of mine be the pupil of a teacher who could 
and would " deal with him in 2. fatJierly way " than to have 
him sit at the feet of the most learned LL.D., A. M., 
B. A., F. R. S., and all the rest of the alphabet, that ever 
set spectacles astride an emaciated nose, and grew dry and 
sandy from digging in the graves of dead ages, but who 
lacked this one thing. 

And then to have some one break the ice for you 
when.yt'/' the first iiuie, you go to a hotel and are brought 
face to face with a printed bill of fare ! As the old hymn 
says, ** O, what eternal horrors hang around " that bill of 
fare, under such circumstances ! Don't / remember, and 
don't j^<?/^ remember what a time we had with it ? 

It was at the Waddell House, Cleveland, Ohio, that 
it first happened to me. I was seventeen, and was away 
from home alone for the first time. 

I got up at five o'clock in the morning, and was mad 
because breakfast wasn't ready ! And I said so, too — 
told the proprietor (night clerk) that I had my opinion 
of a house that would charge a man (?) ^3.00 a day, and 
make him wait around for an hour for breakfast ! 

And at six, when the big dining-room door swung 
open, I went into breakfast all alone ! Not a soul else to sit 
down to those two acres of tables and dishes but myself ! 

And when a red-headed waiter-girl, in a much-be- 



" DOTr 101 

starched calico gown which rattled like stage thunder 
as she bore down on me, thrust that bill of fare under my 
nose — O, I can't go on and tell it all! It is more than 
thirty years since it happened, yet it gives me the horrors, 
even now, just to write about it. 

And to be saved all this. To have "Dot along" to 
show a fellow how — as Mr. Gounod says in his opera, 
" Oh, bliss ! oh, rapture!" 

But the chief thing about it all, to me, is, that this 
teacher got an idea of his own, and without consulting 
Pestalozzi, or Froebel, or any other " authority," he had 
the head and the heart to carry that idea to a successful 
issue. 

Not that you, or anybody else, should try to do just 
what he did. Not that ! If you, teaching in a small 
town, as this man is, or in a large town either, for that 
matter, should try to do just what he did, you would prob- 
ably fail at it. 

But if you can get an idea that, worked out, you think 
will be of value to your children ; and if you get that idea 
so hard that it " sticks to you," and you can not and will 
not let it alone until you can say : ** I have done what I 
planned and I am pretty well satisfied with the result, and 
so are those for whom I planned and wrought" — if you 
can do this, then you may know, to a certainty, that you 
are among the elect in the fraternity ; that your " call to 
teach " was a genuine voice from heaven, and not some 
other noise that you heard, but didn't understand. 



102 WALKS AND TALKS. 



THE BAD BOY'S MOTHER. 

It is a great comfort to me, in my " walks abroad," 
to know that I am not traveling alone, but have com- 
panions by the way, friends who chat with me as I go 
along, and who call my attention to this or that object of 
interest or importance, which I should, perhaps, miss 
altogether if they did not point it out to me. 

Indeed, this is the greatest thing in life, this com- 
panionship by the way. Take that out, and there would 
be very little left in this world worth living for. It ts 
sympathy that we all crave ; and if there be any hum^in 
blood in us, we are heart sick and discouraged if we do 
not get what we so much long for. 

Oh, I know what the poets say concerning solitude, 
and all that, and I am well aware that there is a kind of 
truth in what they are trying to get at ; nevertheless, I 
am heartily in accord with Dundreary, when he says that 
" of course birds of a feather flock together, for nothing 
but a very idiot of a bird would go off and try to flock all 
alone by its own self ! " 

And Walt Whitman is equally correct when he says, 
" Whoever walks a furlong without sympathy, marches at 
his own funeral dressed in his shroud !" 

And that is the reason why this batch of letters before 
me is worth while — letters that have been written to me 
by my fellow-travelers in my ^' walks abroad " — for every 
scrap of paper in the bunch contains some word from a 
companion, some " See here," or " Don't you think ? " or 
"Have you ever noticed?" or "It seems to me," or 
something of that sort. 



THE BAD BOY'S MOTHER. 103 

For instance, the letter on the top of the pile is writ- 
ten in a feminine hand — a good, trim, tailor-made-suit 
sort of a hand — and it says to me : 

" The evolution of the bad boy of the school is a 
problem that taxes my resources to the utmost, and when 
there is added to th-'s the involution of the bad boy's 
mother, what is flesh and blood to do ?" 

The interrogation mark which stands at the end of 
this sentence in the letter is as large and as grappling 
in appearance as the iron hook at the end of an old- 
fashioned log chain. All of which I interpret to mean, 
"Answer that, sir, so as to settle the business once for all, 
and you shall have the biggest medal that the World's 
Fair can possibly stamp out and mold up." 

" Well," as the preachers say when tackling a mighty 
theme (and surely the bad boy's mother may justly be 
considered a mighty almost anything), " I should make a 
distinction." That is, it would make all the difference in 
the world to me what kind of a woman the bad boy's 
mother was, as to how I should treat her. 

If she were a stupid female, who felt that something 
was wrong, she hardly knew what, and whose boy had 
worried the life out of her till she hardly knew whether 
she were dead or alive — why, in such case, I should do 
my best to be patient and keep still, and let the poor 
creature unburden her mind. It does such a woman a 
great deal of good just to talk, and if I could busy myself j 
at correcting papers, or making out averages, or going 
through some of the other rigmarole and red-tape motions 
that the system subjects me to, while she told her story, 
or abused me, as the case might be, I should count myself 
happy. 

And, if she were an arrogant person, rich and mean, I 



104 WALKS AND TALKS. 

should be inclined to treat her in something of the same 
fashion, only being more blase than ever in her case. 

Indeed, it is held by many of the great teachers of 
this glorious land of ours that the *' keep-still " method 
of treating these fearsome females works better than any- 
thing else that they have ever tried. It is an exceedingly 
wearying thing, they claim, to beat the air ; and many a 
prize-fighter has been eventually "knocked out" by an 
antagonist who was no where near as hard a hitter as him- 
self, but who knew enough to keep out of the way till the 
giant was winded, and who then got in his work. 

And so, in general, the answer on this line would be, 
keep out of the bad boy's mother's way when she takes a 
hand in the game. Say nothing to her. Let her talk till 
she is tired, and if she gives out, ask her if she hasn't 
something more on her mind ! 

In a word, shake the red rag of your own silence in 
her face, and dodge her by bending more closely than 
ever over whatever you are ostensibly working at when 
she "charges," and ten chances to one she will break 
down and cry inside of five minutes ; and when she does 
that, she is yours to escort to the door ! 

To be sure, such a method seems to me to be abom- 
inably mean, but there is an old maxim that says some- 
thing about fighting the devil with fire, and the above 
comes as near that as it is possible to attain in these pre- 
mises. So I note it as o?ie of the things that might be 
done when you have a case of the " involution of the bad 
boy's mother," and it is a way that zvorks^ as many a 
teacher can testify. 

However, this is only what " flesh and blood " would 
do, and I have mentioned it because that is what my walk- 
ing companion asked advice about. 



THE BAD BOTS MOTHER. 105 

As to what the spirit would do, that is another ques- 
tion. 

And it is the spirit that ought to handle these cases, 
and which is fully capable of doing so without any advice 
from me or anybody else. Keep the flesh and blood of 
yourself in the background, your spirit holding it by the 
collar, as if it were an angry dog bristling for a fight (and 
that is what it is, for the most part), and let your soul 
come to the front and take control of things, and your 
troubles on this count will be well nigh ended ere they are 
fairly begun. 

It was a wise man who said, "A soft answer turneth 
away wrath, but grievous words stir up strife." 

And do not forget that, in many cases (my experience 
is in a majority of cases), the bad boy's mother has a side 
to her suit that you can well afford to listen to and con- 
sider. It may be hard for you to take a lesson at her 
hands, but many a teacher has grown exceeding wise on 
such instruction. 

As a rule, the mother knows her boy far better than 
you do, and a thousand chances to one she has more at 
stake in him than you possibly can have. 

And, besides this, as many schools are now organized, 
on the ultra-graded plan, the probabilities are not a few 
that the complaining witness has good grounds for her 
"involution" in the case. 

If her boy is slow in some particular branch of study, 
and for this cause has been kept back in other studies in 
which he is bright (and thousands of boys, both good and 
bad, have been dealt with in this way), and for this reason 
he has become nettled and aggravated until he has turned 
bad just to get even with his persecutors — if this is the 
situation (and I suspect that such is the case much oftener 
than the average teacher would willingly admit), then, if 



106 WALKS AND TALKS. 

the mother comes to plead for, or to demand equity and 
justice for her offspring, hear her, I beseech you. She 
has a right to be heard, and as God lives, she will be heard, 
some day, whether you listen to her or not. 

The school is for her boy, and not her boy for the 
school, and if things are not this end to she has full cause 
for "involution " till matters are set right. 

But it is useless to extenuate. There is no end to the 
subject. One could write about it till the crack of doom 
and still the half would not be told. I think all that can 
wisely be said about it is, '• make a distinction," and be 
sure, every time, that the mother has everything that can 
possibly conduce to the best interest and welfare of her 
bad boy. 

INCORRIGIBLES. 

Another fellow-traveler writes: "To what extent 
should the public school be made a reform school? or, in 
other words, How long shoujd the whole school suffer the 
presence of a refractory or incorrigible pupil?" 

And here again I must beg to reply that I shouid 
" make a distinction." 

If a pupil is ivholly incorrigible, I should say that the 
public school should not be burdened with him for a 
single moment; just as, if a pupil has the small-pox or the 
diphtheria, he should at once be removed. 

But the question is, is the pupil of this sort? 

That is an item that should be well considered, and 
very deliberately acted upon. 

My own opinion, based upon my experience, is that 
a very small percentage of those who are ordinarily 
counted as bad boys in school are ''incorrigible." 

I suppose there are boys of the utterly bad sort; but I 
say, frankly, that I never yet met one who was wholly 
that way ! 



THE BAD B0T8 MOTHER. 107 

It is with me about this as it has been about meeting 
villains such as we see depicted on the stage — the man 
who gets a mortgage on the farm, and falls in love with 
the sweet daughter, and then turns down the thumb 
screws till the girl says yes, and her father falls headlong 
into a desperate grave ! I have seen all this played a 
hundred times, and have often wondered that 1 have never 
met one of these gifted villains in society; but, thus far, 
not one of them has crossed my track, so far as I know. 
They may have done so, but if they have I have failed to 
recognize them. 

I have seen a great many .f/?//'^^^ people who did wrong, 
and some very wicked ones who persisted in their evil 
doing long after I thought they ought to stop; and I have 
even seen some people who thought they were exceed- 
ingly good, who have done things that seemed to me not 
a tittle shady. Indeed, if I crowd the case far enough, I 
am forced to acknowledge certain acts of my own, that, 
according to some plumb lines, might be found some 
degrees "out of true;" but, with all this on the wrong side 
of the ledger, I am certain that I never met an " incor- 
rigible ! " I do not say that there are no such people, I 
only insist that, in the distribution of prizes, such a one 
has never fallen to my lot. 

And yet I know that there are such people, and some- 
times they are boys, for I remember the sad and awful 
story of Jesse Pomeroy, the boy murderer, of Boston, who 
took delight in cutting the throats of little girls, and I 
suppose there are similar cases in other towns. 

And if I had such a boy in school, I firmly believe 
that he ought not to remain therein a single day. And 
boys (or girls) who are habitual thieves, or vicious, or 
licentious, or insane, on any criminal line (for who can 
believe otherwise than that all such people are uabaiancea 



108 WALKS AND TALKS. 

in mind?), all these should be eliminated from the public 
school, dut these only. 

The boy who is only mischievous, and who loves fun 
better than he loves books, he should not be forced to go. 
That is not what the school is for, to turn Imit out. 

To be sure he is a burden, but he is a burden to be 
borne rather than thrown in the ditch. To dump him is 
an easy way out of the trouble, for the time being, but it 
is the coward's way, the lazy teacher's way, the shirk's 
way, the sneak's way. It is not the way of the teacher 
who is called of God to teach, and who believes in himself 
as God's minister among the children! 

Do you know that the great bulk of what we call 
wickedness in this world is really stupidity? 

I have a friend who once had a greater strain put upon 
his integrity than he was able to stand up under, and the 
result was he was forced to spend a year in the peniten- 
tiary. He is a bright man, and he kept his eyes wide open 
while undergoing this terrible ordeal. He has told me 
some of the things he learned while in prison, and the 
most impressive thing he has said to me is that more than 
nine-tenths of all the convicts who are undergoing penal 
servitude are men who are absolutely incapable of taking 
care of themselves ! They are tramps — dependent, erratic, 
cunning, half-made-up fellows, who are far weaker than 
they are wicked, and in many cases more stupid than 
either. 

And I wonder if such is not much the situation 
among the alleged bad boys of our schools. And is it 
not true, too, that, for the most part, the bad boys that 
bother us most are those that have no head for books? 
And don't you begin to realize that there are ever so many 
people in this world who have no head for books, though 
they may have fair, yes, great abilities in other directions? 



THE BAD BOY'S 3f OTHER. 109 

For instance, there is my gardener, who scarcely ever 
reads a word, though he had a good fair chance to attend 
school when a boy. He has no delight in books. I doubt 
if he ever read a story in his life, and as for taking up 
Tennyson, or holding his own in a Browning club — you 
laugh ! 

But you ought to see the garden this man can make ; 
the roses he can coax into bloom when my friend the 
learned Professor of Botany has given them up ; the rad- 
ishes he has ready for our table long before any of our 
neighbors have them, and so on to the further end of the 
garden. 

And the delight he takes in all this is something that 
it does one's soul good to see. 

I did not know him in school, but if I could get at his 
record there I strongly suspect that his deportment would 
be much below lOO, and that he was counted a bad bo}-. 
But I do not believe that he was an *' incorrigible." Any- 
how, he is far enough from that in his present place, and 
something pretty severe would have to happen before I 
should expel him from the position he now holds. 

Is there a hint in this for you, my fellow-travelers, or 
for you who are looking on and seeing what we are saying 
to each other ? 

There are a good many things that happen in school 
that it doesn't pay the teacher to see. Boys will be boys, 
and girls, girls ; and children are not old folks. Thank 
God they are not, and that they can not be made to be. 
And as long as they are not malicious and criminal, my 
notion is that it ought to be a very rare thing for one 
of these little ones to perish out of the public schools. 
Don't take their shortcomings and capers too seriously. 
Remember when you — oh, but this is wormwood ; but 
that herb makes a healthful, though a bitter draught! 



110 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Truly, it is only last week, as we were cleaning house, 
that the woman who was going to the bottom and top of 
everything to make all clean, knocked down a little, old 
spool-box from an upper shelf in a closet, where it had 
lain, undisturbed, for many and many a year. It fell open 
as it struck the floor, and out rolled a heap of little notes, 
all folded small, and written in the daintiest hand. From 
the looks of the chirography, a very paragon of all the 
feminine virtues wrote those pages. 

And it was a lovely girl who penciled them, and as 
good as she was lovely. She was very scholarly too. All 
these notes of hers are written in Latin. She was eigh- 
teen at the time, and ought to have been above such 
doings; and I know that she knew it was against the 
rules to do as she did. She loved books, and stood at 
the head of her class. And yet she wrote every one ot 
those notes to me, in school time, looking on her book all 
the while as though she were studying with all her might; 
and when she had written them, she folded them up small, 
even as they all show to this day, and threw them acroiss 
three rows of seats to where I sat and caught them on the 
fly! 

I do not know where she is now. The last I heard of 
her she was a matronly school ma'am, teaching in a high 
school; and if, perchance, her eyes should fall upon these 
lines, let her, if she be tempted to rid herself of some "in- 
corrigible," remember this little package of time-stained 
papers which she wrote and which I caught with eager- 
ness and replied to with fervor, and all in spite of "the 
rules!" 

(In justice, let me say that this naughty girl wrote bet- 
ter Latin than I did, when the correspondence began, 
and that this fact increased my devotion to the study of 
that language to such an extent that I am certain I learned 



THE BAD B0T8 MOTHER. Ill 

more Latin prose in writing notes to her than from the 
regular exercises.) 

Nor were we two sinners above all others. How is it 
vjiihyou who read these lines? How many stones could 
you throw at us if freedom from clandestine note-writing 
were the measure of fitness for that sort of amusement? 
Tm not saying that we did right, and yet — well, I learned 
a good deal of Latin out of it all, and for some reason or 
other I picked up all those bits of paper from off the 
floor the other day, and put them back in the box again, 
and the box on the shelf once more. 

And if I should be asked now if I were sorry for 
what I did so many years ago — well, what would you say 
if the case were yours? What do you say about your own 
similar escapades? Don't say that you had none such, for 
if you have had interest enough in what I am writing to 
read what I have written here, it is because you are " in 
the same condemation." 

And so let us deal with the bad children as well as 
we can, remembering that out of just such a lot we came, 
and see what a fine set of men and women we have made! 

There is hope for humanity yet! Have we not prov- 
ed it for ourselves, and is not the rule as good for the 
future as for the past? 

Of course I understand that things should be done 
decently and in order in the school room, and that chil- 
dren should be controlled and made to do the proper 
thing, if the matter comes to an issue. But don't be too 
fierce to force an issue. 

There are ever so many things that will take care of 
themselves if you will give them time, and Mede-and 
Persian laws are out of place in the school-house. 

Be patient, and don't get cross yourself. Keep your 
temper, and hold your flesh and blood in the background, 



112 WALKS AND TALKS. 

with your soul to the fore, and you will find the way for 
yourself which neither I nor any one else can ever point 
out for you. 

For, the fact is that no one can tell you how to deal, 
either with bad boys or with bad boys^ mothers. The 
evolution of the one and the involution of the other are 
things that you must work out for yourself. You may 
get a hint here and there, but it must all fall back upon 
you at last. 

And, more than that, you can never hit upon any 
patent plan that will settle all cases of this kind for all 
time and in the same way. In this, as in all else, the old 
man's words are true, when he says: " Now, understand 
me well, there is no fruition of success, no matter how 
great, but that, out of it, something shall arise to make a 
still greater struggle necessary! " 

That may not be a very restful sentence for a lazy 
soul, but it is true, and especially so in dealing with the 
evolution of bad boys and the involution of their mothers. 



BORN "SHORT." 113 



BORN "SHORT." 

I wish you would stop a minute, right here, before we 
go any further, and think out, honestly, just exactly what 
it is i\i2it you can do, or perhaps better, what it is that you 
do do poorer than you do anything else in the world. Or, 
if that way of getting at what I am after is too galling to 
your self-esteem, or pride, or egotism, or what you will, 
all I ask is that you make a note of the thing you cant do, 
and that you know so well you can't do that you don't try 
to do it at all. 

Now, please don't slur this over in a shiftless or lazy 
(not to say lying) way, but look the thing squarely in the 
face, for once in your life, and see what comes of it. 
Don't try to deceive yourself into the idea that you do, or 
can do, all things equally well. You know better ; and in- 
asmuch as any admissions you may make here are only 
** to yourself " and not ** out loud," be honest, and out with 
the bottom facts in the case, just for this once, at least. 

[Pause here a full minute by the clock ! ] 

Well, now if you are ready, we will go on. 

You realize now, do you not, as a result of your re- 
flections just made, that there are some places in your 
make-up in which you are, as it were, born "short?" 
(You know *' on 'change" they say a man is "long" or 
"short," according as he has on hand much or little of 
any commodity that the market deals in.) 

I say you find yourself '' short " on certain counts ; 
and not only so, but, when you come to think about it, 
you find that you have always been so ! That is, you are 
8 



114 WALKS AND TALKS. 

not only " short " now, at one point or another, but, what- 
ever your shortage is, il was born with you. 

And that is what I mean when I say that you were 
'* born short." 

Just what that shortage is, in your particular case, I 
am not at all curious to know. That is a matter that per- 
tains strictly to yourself, and cuts no figure in what I am 
about to say. All I care for is to have you realize that 
there \^ something (perhaps there are a good many things) 
that you can't do, never could do, never can learn to do 
with any degree of success, and that you will never even 
try to do if you can have your own way about it. 

Perhaps you cannot sing ; may be you cannot dance, 
cannot paint, cannot draw, cannot spell ! cannot remember 
dates ! cannot remember the fundamental principles of 
of natural philosophy, or a hundred and one other com- 
mon or curious things that some other people can do 
easily enough, but which you know you cannot do — in 
other words, which you were '^ born short " on. 

Now I came across this somewhat curious fact the 
other day, during one of my " walks abroad," among my 
own mental furnishings. I was strolling along through my 
intellectual workshop, as it were, and taking a sort of in- 
ventory of appliances and possible output, when I became 
painfully aware of the real situation in my own case. I 
found that there were certain things that I could do, and 
certain other things that I could not do ; and that, for the 
most part, what is now has always been so, so far as primal 
ability is concerned. 

Of course, I can do a good many things now that I 
could not do once. Practice and perseverance, along cer- 
tain lines, have yielded fruit that is worth while. But I 
find that on whatever lines I was " born short," there has 
been no progress that is worthy the name, even though I 



BORN " SHOBT," 115 

may have striven hard to have it otherwise. I am not 
going to make you my father confessor, and own up, right 
here, just what my failings are. You who know me are 
probably well aware of my " shortages." I only admit 
that I have found several deserts and waste places in my 
mental field. That is all, and it is enough. 

When this fact began to bear down upon me, I re- 
membered that a wise man had said : ** Do you not see 
that these things are the same all over the earth ? " and I 
began to look about me to see how it was with the rest of 
mankind ; I found some curious things, I assure you, 
some of which I am going to note, as follows : 

I found a lady friend of mine who is one of the most 
brilliant women, in a literary way, that I ever met — a 
woman who fills me with wonder and amazement at the 
range and quality of her literary acquirements, who can 
repeat pages and pages from the best authors of this and 
other times, and whose criticisms of literature are oracles 
among all who know her ; and yet she cannot make 
change for a dollar ! She could not tell you how much 
eleven and a half yards of calico would cost at nine and 
three-fourths cents a yard ! She cannot repeat the multi- 
plication table ! She cannot add a simple column of 
figures ! She never could, or did, carry arithmetic at 
school, and as for the higher mathematics, she has no 
more comprehension of their purport than has the man in 
the moon. 

And yet this woman went to school, as a girl, and 
tried her best to learn numbers. She could not do it. She 
was "born short" on that line. 

But I beg you to note that she is not a fool ! On the 
contrary, as I have already said, she is one of the most 
intelligent and cultured women I ever met, take her in 
lur special line of literature. 



116 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Again, I found a primary school teacher, a good one, 
who has taught in the same school for years, and who has 
made a great succes3 of her work, who cannot tell the 
time of day on a clock ! This I could hardly believe when 
she told me about it, but on inquiry among her acquaint- 
ances, I found it to be a fact. More than this, I have 
since found two similar cases, one that of a gentleman, the 
other that of a lady. The latter has quite a family of chil- 
dren, and they told me that their mother always asks them 
what time it is, whenever she wishes to know the hour ! 

Again, I found a successful business man, one who 
has large interests in his hands and who manages them all 
well, who cannot go from his store to the post-office with- 
out a guide, though the places are only five blocks distant 
from each other, and there are only two corners to turn. 
His clerks tell me that he sometimes gets lost in his own 
store, and that they have to show him the way back to his 
desk ! His sense of locality seems to be almost ni/, and 
yet he can conduct the business of a large commercial 
house successfully. 

I found a number of people who cannot tell one tune 
from another, and many whose ears are dull when it comes 
to hearing a high and piercing note. I remember one man 
who could not hear a cricket chirping in a room where a 
dozen other persons, sitting near him, could hear the 
sound very plainly. This man was not deaf, as we ordin- 
arily consider that infirmity. He could hear an ordinary 
conversation as well as any one. But he could nof hear 
the high and piercing note of a chirping cricket. I also 
found not a few people who were color-blind, and many 
who were "short" in their sense of taste, and smell, and 
so on. 

In a word, after a few weeks of pretty careful search- 
ing among persons of my acquaintance, I have made up 



j^ork*'Short:\ 117 

my mind that there is not one of them who is not " short " 
somewhere. On the other hand, I am glad to say that 
every one of these same people I found to be "long" 
somewhere. There are not only things that they cannot 
do, but there are things that they can do better than they 
can do anything else ; things that they love to do, and are 
happy while they are doing them. 

Of course I recognize the fact that the special cases 
of shortage, which I have noted at the beginning of this 
chapter, are very pronounced. Indeed, I do not think it 
too much to say that they are exceptional, very excep- 
tional. But I confess that I have been surprised to find 
how many similar exceptions there are, wherever I have 
pursued my investigations. The quaint and curious things 
of this sort that I have come upon, even in a few weeks' 
search, would fill a very respectable volume, and it would 
be exceedingly interesting reading, especially if names 
and places were given. 

And what T have done, you can do easily enough; 
and it will pay you, if you are a parent or a teacher, 
to probe about a little in this curious corner of human 
nature. Just begin with yourself, and when you have 
found out the "long" and "short" of //^^/ individual, you 
will have the key to all that can possibly come after. 

Well, of course all this is only worth while, just here, 
on the ground that it has some bearing on the cause of 
education. It may be very strange, and all that, but these 
chapters are not a Curiosity Shop, or a place for the mere 
display of odd things pertaining to humanity, or anything 
else. And so I hasten to "call the turn" on the data 
which I have just noted, as follows: 

I have said that I have found many grown-up people 
who were born short, and that neither culture nor educa- 
tion has availed to make good their original deficiencies. 



118 WALKS AND TALKS. 

I now beg to state that I have found many children in 
our common schools who are born short, but whose teachers 
fail to recognize the fact, or, if they are aware of it, they re- 
fuse to take it into account in the matter of the education 
of these same children! 

That is what I want to say, and what I wish you 
would stop again, for a minute, and think about, right 
here! 

It is true, isn't it? You know it is true of the child- 
ren in your ovjn room, don't you? 

There is Mary Martin, the beautiful little brunette 
who sits in the back seat, and whom the whole schocj, 
male and female, raves over, but who cannot get on m 
her number work, though she tries ever so hard to do sj. 
I saw this girl (and her name is legion) in a school that I 
visited last week. She was thirteen, and in the A grade in 
the grammar room. Her class was working in fractions, 
and she, poor thing, was doing her level best to keep 
within hailing distance of them. 

In a bit of work that I gave to the class, I had occa- 
sion, by way of illustration, to ask them to add together 
\ and \. It was a simple thing, the like of which they had 
been doing off and on, for the last three years. Txie 
pupils were at their desks, each with pencil and pap«;;r, 
and each working alone. 

As soon as I uttered the problem I slipped down 
among the children and glanced at their workings as I 
went. The most of them were making quick work of the 
poor little snip of an example, and some of them had the 
result before I could get to them. But when I got down 
to my poor little girl who was born short on this "lay" I 
found this: --I + -I- = | ! " 

Now you have seen this same, haven't you — yes a 
thousand times? You have had such cases in your own 



BOBN^'SHOBTr 119 

school many times, doubtless. And if you have, what 
have you done about them? That is what I want to know, 
and what I should like to have you answer to yourself, at 
least. 

I can tell you what has been done with such cases in 
most of the graded schools of this country for the last 
twenty years. The fact of the shortage of this poor girl 
has been ignored; or, rather, perhaps, it has been held 
that there was no such shortage, and that the girl could 
be made to master what she had no head for. 

And on this basis she has been worked, and ground, 
and kept after school to learn her lessons, and put back 
into a lower grade, all along the line, because she couldn't 
keep up with her class in this or that particular study, 

Listen. Great Heavens ! 

Or, worse than this, in many cases teachers have set 
such children down as fools — to use a word which seems 
pretty strong here, but which I have known many teachers 
to use in such cases. But I want to say that these child- 
ren are not fools; or, anyhow, they are often wiser than 
are the teachers who try to teach them regardless of 
what God intended they should learn. 

For instance, in the case of the little girl I have just 
spoken of, her teacher told me that she excelled in gram- 
mar and in history, but that she was so dull in numbers 
that she desparied of ever getting her through her grade 
work ! 

Hang the grade work ! ( Please excuse that exple- 
tive. Great situations require strong language to express 
them.) 

And, pray, what excuse can any one offer for tor- 
menting one of God's little ones for the mere sake of 
having her pass in a grade? It was the gentle Jesus who 
said something about millstones and certain men's necks, 



120 WALKS AND TALKS. 



and a good strong rope, and the bottom of the sea, and 
all occupying the same space at the same time ! 

Brethren and sisters, will you think of these things, 
and reflect where you and I would now be if the above 
sort of justice had been meted out to us! What a multi- 
tude of millstones there would now be in deep water, 
surely! 

Well, but you say, what are you going to do about it? 
We cannot let pupils go as they please. There must be 
some order, some method, some regularity, or we shall 
have nothing but chaos in our school rooms. 

To which I say yes, we must have order, and method, 
and regularity, and all thd.t, Just as far as it can serve our 
purpose, and 7io further. We cannot afford to have these 
things ad extremis, or we shall have them in extreinis! 

What shall we do then, with these "born short" 
cases? 

Why, use our common sense, that is all. Treat these 
children in these respects, and in school, just as we treat 
them in other respects and out of school, that is all. The 
matter is just as easy of solution as that, when you come 
right down to it in a sensible way. 

Just look out there on the play ground, please, where 
the children are having things their own way. Do you 
see that little cripple boy with a group of his mates about 
him? Poor fellow, he was born short in the matter of a 
spinal column, and has a pitiful hump on his back. Do 
you think he could ever be developed into a successful 
runner, and compete with his mates on such a basis? 
Why, even the children know better than that, and out of 
deference to his feelings they will not even refer to a rac- 
ing game in the presence of his infirmity! 

And yet, as God lives, *****! am ashamed 
to blot this white paper on which I am writing by setting 



1 



• JBOBN"SHORTr 121 

down what is sometimes done in the name of the grade, 
not only in the presence of, but to the mentally hunch- 
backed and sightless and deaf — the little ones who are 
born short! 

And we can take care of these children, even in our 
public schools, and do for them somewhere near what 
ought to be done, if we only set ourselves to the task. 
Indeed, the very children at play put us to shame if we 
cannot, and do not, do this. I must not stop here (for this 
paper is now too long) to tell you how to do this, in detail. 
If you cannot find a way yourself you had better drop out 
of the profession, for there are still unsunk millstones and 
ropes, and at the bottom of the sea there is yet room for 
those who offend God's little ones who are born short. 

Work your children faithfully and vigorously where 
they are " long" and strong, and help them as best you 
can where they are *' short" and weak; and whatever you 
do or do not do, I beg of you not to waste your owntime^ 
and torture your victims, by trying to develop in them, 
severally, powers and capabilities which they can never 
possess. 

It is not true that what any man has done every man 
can do. And yet the old maxim: "What man has done 
man can do " is generally so translated to our children, 
and the courses of study in our common schools are fash- 
ioned as if this old saw were one of the ten command- 
ments. 

But things are not going to be always as they now 
are. Will j^ou see whsitj/ou can do to set the matter right 
in your own school? 

[ Pause here and reflect for one minute, by the clpck.] 



122 WALKS AND TALKS. 



HOW HE KNEW IT. 

I have for a long time been possessed of a sort of latent 
idea, whenever I have heard certain of my fellow -men 
expatiating on the peculiar weaknesses and meannesses 
of some of their associates, that the way they happen to 
know as much as they do of other people's failings, is not 
because of their external observation of the offender they 
are so berating, but that it rather arises from an internal 
study of themselves, and their own particular "cussed- 
ness," which, having discovered in themselves, they very 
readily recognize when they see their duplicates in another. 
This theory of mine received a full confirmation, not long 
ago, from the following incident: 

It happened, as I was riding on the cars, that we pass- 
ed through a county seat, and a number of young people 
got aboard who had just been to the county superinten- 
dent's office for examination. They looked tired and 
anxious and for several minutes after they were seated 
they said nothing. Finally one of them spoke as follows: 

"Well, wasn't that the blamedest lot of three-corner- 
ed conundrums, for a set of examination questions, that 
you ever struck? " and he slapped his seatmate on his 
knee with a whack that could be heard all over the car. 

"Well I should smile," replied the young fellow ad- 
dressed. "Wonder where he got on to 'em, anyway. 
Couldn't have made 'em all up himself, for there ain't a 
fellow this side of kingdom come that could get such a 
cranky lot of stuff out of his head and ever live to tell the 
tale. Great guns! But I'd like to get him some day 
where I could pop riddles into him for six hours at a 



JIOW HE KNEW IT. rj3 

stretch. If I wouldn't make him think there was retribti- 
tion in this world!" 

" There wasn't one in ten of the questions that I had 
ever seen or heard anything at all like before," remark- 
ed a bright looking young woman who sat in the seat just 
in front, and who turned partly toward the young man as 
she spoke, bringing into view a cheek that betokened 
health and vigor unstinted, — such a study in pink and 
white as one rarely sees outside of a town of five-hundred 
inhabitants, "There was that one about 'Sloyd!' I 
thought, first, it must be something about some distin- 
guished man, for you know it was printed with a capital 
letter; but then it went on and asked for 'its history and 
merits,' and that put me all out. I wonder if there is any 
such thing, anyhow?" and she aimed the question slightly 
toward the young man who sat nearest the window. 

" Hanged if know or care," he replied. "The who'e 
blamed thing is a humbug, from first to last, the way 
they're getting to run it. Sometimes 1 thmk I never will 
be examined again — that I will never put myself wheie 
I can be bothered and badgered till I don't know which 
end my head is on, and all for the sake of getting a piece 
or paper from a man or a woman who, ten chances to one, 
take 'em up one road and down another, doesn't know so 
very much more than I do, after all." And he blushed a 
trifle, lest, in his zeal, he had suffered his egotism to show 
itself a little too plainly, especially in the presence of the 
pink cheek, I thought. 

" Oh, well, it's the law, and of course that has to be 
complied with," remarked a fourth member of the party, 
a scholarly young fellow who was standing in the aisle as 
he spoke. '^ But they are piling it on pretty thick, in 
some counties, I must confess; and this fellow to-day is a 
little the worst I ever ran against. I thought perhaps he 



m WALKS AND TALKS. 

wouldn't examine me when I went in this morning. I've 
been teaching for a number of years, and I hold first grade 
certificates from two as good counties as there are in the 
state. But, no! They were no good, and I had to go 
through the mill. 

" And I never did so poorly before in my life," he 
added. "What with the questions, which certainly were 
a very "tricky" lot, and with my having forgotten a good 
share of the things which are generally asked at such 
times, but which are never used in the practical work 
of teaching, I made a very poor showing. 

" Honestly, though," he continued, " I was sorrier for 
the man v/ho was such a stickler for form, and would ask 
such questions, than I was for those of us who had to 
endure what he kept us at for the best part of the day. 
Such an examination is always the sign of a little man, 
and that's- the kind I'm never afraid of." 

"Well, but you've got to be, for he can keep you 
from getting a certificate, if he has a mind to, big or 
little," said a red-haired girl, who, up to this time, had 
been listening only. 

" Oh, don't worry about that," returned the former 
speaker, " I'm here to bet that there isn't one of this crowd 
but what '11 get a certificate, all right and regular. You 
see, here's the way of it, when you come to ' analyze the 
causation, succession, and ultimation of the ph«nomena,' 
as the psychology professor would say. 

" The very fact that a superintendent will submit such 
a set of questions as this man gave us to-day is proof 
positive that he is weak, to say the least. He has no 
strength in himself, and so he attempts to make us think 
he has by trying to paralyze us with hard and unheard of 
questions. So he hunts through some old books and gets 
a lot of * posers ' that are of no value in the world, except 



HOW HE KNEW IT. 125 

for just this purpose; gets them printed^ and sets us to 
writing on them. 

" But did you notice he made the whole examination 
written ? He didn't ask a single one of us an oral question 
that would give us any chance to talk to him ! And that's 
another sign that he is a weak man, if not a coward. And 
if he is either, he will be afraid not to give a certificate to 
any and every person that he has been as unfair to as he 
has to us to-day. Such people always have a kind of low 
political cunning, and they make the best use of it they 
know how to. 

" And the thing above all things that they do want is 
to hold their position. When such a man gets to be 
county superintendent, he's got a better thing than he 
ever had before in his life, and he'll never give it up unless 
he has to. What he wants to do is to make people think 
he is very wise and learned, and so he resorts to * trick 
questions' for effect. But that is all there is of it. He 
never refuses to grant a certificate because a candidate 
can't, or don't answer his questions. He wouldn't dare to. 
It would expose his hand ! 

" So don't you worry. Your certificates '11 come all 
right. In fact, I'll bet a dollar he'll never carefully look 
over a single paper that was written in his office to-day. 
He'll just wait a day or two, for effect, and then mail us 
the documents that we need in our practice." 

The attendant company of listeners looked hopeful 
as this speaker continued, and when he closed, one of them 
said, addressing him : *' How did you get onto all this 
racket ? " 

The young man in the aisle paused, surveyed the 
group a moment, and then with his forefinger on the side 
of his nose, winked, and said knowingly : ** / was once 
county superintendent myself ! " 



126 WALKS AND TALKS. 



WHITTLING. 

My grandmother was the possessor of several accom- 
plishments that were somewhat rare among women, even 
in her day and generation. She was a deft weaver, and 
could turn out all sorts of curious patterns from her loom ; 
she made all the starch used in the family, and knew how 
to prepare metheglin ; and she could make a turkey so 
fat that it could not walk, but had to lie continuously on 
its side, in the dark, in the cellar, for two weeks before 
Thanksgiving ! 

But by far the most unique of her attainments was 
her ability to use a jack-knife. With this tool of tools she 
was an expert of experts; and amongst the heirlooms 
that are still left in our family there are many silent and 
yet most eloquent testimonials to her ability as a cunning 
worker with this handiest of all implements, when in the 
hands of one who knows how to use it. 

However, I started out not for the purpose of eulo- 
gizing my grandmother, dear old soul though she was, nor 
yet of writing an essay on the jack-knife and its uses, but 
for another purpose altogether, which I must get around 
to before my space in this chapter is all used up on pre- 
liminaries. 

What I set out to say is, that I remember this old 
lady, aforesaid, once gave me a few whittling lessons 
that I have always been thankful for, and which I have 
been able to turn to most excellent use, more than 
once, in making my way along the devious pathways that 
I have had to trudge over in my journey thus far through 
life. But of all the instructions she gave me in the use of 



WHITTLING. 127 

the jack-knife, there was one thing she taught me that has 
be^n of inestimable value to me, as follows : 

She called me to her one day and told me that they 
were going to make cider that afternoon, and she wanted 
me to whittle a plug to fit a hole in the end of the cider- 
barrel. She had a pine stick in her hand, to make the 
plug out of, and had already split it out to somewhere 
near the size it would have to be to fit the hole. All I 
had to do was to make it round and smooth. It struck 
me that it was an easy job, and I set to work at it with a 
vim — a 'confident boy's vim. 

The stick was easy whittling, and I made the shavings 
curl up in great shape, the old lady standing by and look- 
ing on without saying a word. Presently, as I turned the 
stick so that I was whittling " against the grain," my knife 
caught too deep into the wood, and before I knew it I had 
split off so thick a shaving that I had made the plug too 
small for the hole one way ! The thing was ruined beyond 
repair, and there was nothing for it but to get a new piece 
of wood and begin all over again. 

And then it was that the old lady got in her work, 
which has stayed with me so effectually during all the 
years since that far day. She said, as she took the ruined 
piece of wood out of my hand, " Willie, you imist learn to 
whittle a thin shaving ! " 

And I have been trying to learn how to do just that 
ever since ; but, oh, the timber I have spoiled meanwhile, 
and the plugs that I have whittled at that leaked on one 
side because I cut too deeply there ! 

You whittle too, sometimes, do you not, beloved ? 

Well, I see it everywhere, and especially in the school- 
rooms that I keep dropping into, as I go here and there, 
walking abroad. I saw it the other day in a school-room 



VZi WALKS AND TALKS. 

away down in Tennessee. It was a young teacher that 
did it — one who was as new to the business she had in 
hand as I was to whittling a plug for a cider barrel, when 
grandmother set me to work on that apparently easy task 
— though I would not be understood as intimating that 
young teachers only make mistakes of this sort.- I have 
seen old ones who have been at it for years, and who have 
spoiled nearly every piece of timber they have put a 
knife to. 

It is not always a question of years and experience, 
though these, of course, have great weight in the matter 
of acquiring expertness in the whittling business. 

This young teacher, that I was speaking of, was just 
doing her first work in teaching a class to cut pasteboard 
and fold it into a required ^m. The special work the 
children had in hand was the making of a cone that should 
be two inches at the base, and have a perpendicular height 
of six inches. 

Now it seems as though that were a very easy thing 
to do ; or, at least, to teach children to do, especially as 
the dimensions for marking off the pattern, and the direc- 
tions for cutting and folding were all printed in a book 
which the teacher had right before her all the time. It 
was almost as easy as to whittle a pine plug for a cider 
barrel. 

And yet what thick shavings that girl whittled, and 
how much timber she spoiled — or let her pupils spoil — 
during the half hour I saw her at her work ! 

I don't know that I ought to go into details, and yet, 
perhaps, it is the best way to get at what I want to say. 
And now that I have written it down, I know that it is 
details that I need to talk about, for it is just there this girl 
broke down. She was not " up " on the details of what she 
was trying to do. She knew what she wanted to get done, 



WHITTLING. 129 

but how to do what she wanted done — there was the rub. 

Her pupils were well provided with apparatus and 
material, just as grandmother gave me a good stick to 
whittle and a sharp knife to whittle with. They had, each 
of them, a ruler, a square, a pair of compasses, a pencil, a 
pair of scissors, a penknife, some mucilage, a nice piece 
of cardboard of the required size. (These pupils were 
doing about the third or fourth year's work.) 

Now, with that for a " lay out," it would seem as 
though it were an easy thing to get results that were 
worth while. And yet you should have seen the results. 
Perhaps you have seen the likes in your own school- 



room 



Let me tell the whole story. There were about forty 
pupils in the room, each one of whom tried to make a 
pasteboard cone two inches at the base and six inches 
high. 

After they had worked for half an hour, I went 
around and inspected the work they had done. And out 
of the lot I found just tivo cones that were complete and 
of the required dimensions ! That was all. The rest 
varied all the way from one inch to three inches at the 
base, and from three to nine inches in height ! 

And yet those children all tried (for they did try^ all 
of them), to make the same thing in the same way. Their 
uniform purpose was to whittle a plug to fit the same 
sized bung hole. But oh, the leaks when the barrel was 
filled ! 

And these failures were largely the teacher's fault, 
and came because she did not know how to whittle a class 
exercise to fit the needs of her class. She had not learned 
the art of "whittling a thin shaving" in the class-room. 
When she cut against the grain of the children's ability to 
comprehend, she split off great chunks of lack of under- 
9 



130 WALKS AND TALKS. 

standing, on their part, and what leaks resulted in their 
work from her blunder! Think of it, — only about five 
per cent, of the work would pass muster ! 

And yet, think not that this teacher was a sinner 
above all others. As said the Master about the men on 
whom the tower of Siloam fell, " Except ye repent ye 
shall all likewise perish ; " and as I look over my own 
work as a teacher, I can see so much glass in the house 1 
have lived in, that I dare not throw very many stones, 
even at this poor girl's back window. 

And still the fact remains that she was to blame. 
The trouble with her work was that she whittled too deep 
and too fast. S/ie did not tell the children definitely enough 
just what to do and just how to doit. She told them too 
many things at once, and she did not take pains enough 
to see that they each understood just what they were to 
do from the word "go." 

In fact, there was no word "go" about it, and that 
was the trouble with it all. This is what she did. She 
said : 

" Now, children, I want you each to make a cone like 
this," and she held up before them a cone she had herself 
made, which was all well and good. 

And then she went on : " Now, you want to put a 
dot near the top of your pasteboard, and draw a perpen- 
dicular line down the sheet, from this dot, five and one- 
fourth inches long. 

"Then draw a horizontal line six and one-eighth 
inches long at the base of the perpendicular, having the 
perpendicular bisect this line at right angles. 

" Then join the top of the perpendicular to each ex- 
tremity of the horizontal line, by means of a straight line. 

'* Then take your compasses and set them the length 
of the line that joins the apex to the extremities, and draw 



WHITTLING, 13 J 

an arc of a circle that shall reach from end to end of the 
base line. 

"Then extend the perpendicular till it is one inch be- 
low the point of intersection of this line and the arc of the 
circle you have drawn. 

"Then set your compasses one inch apart, and using" 
the lower end of the perpendicular as a center, describe a 
circle about this point. 

" Then take your scissors and cut on the diagonal 
lines, on the line that forms the arc, and also around the 
small circle, being careful not to entirely sever the small 
circle from the arc, to which it should remain attached." 

There, that is substantially what she said, in much less 
time than it has taken me to write it, and it was all the 
directions she gave the children, other than drawing a 
large diagram of the lines on the board — a diagram which 
was several times as large as the one the pupils were to 
make. 

What shavings ! Rather, what chunks of mental cord- 
wood she chopped off from the plug she was trying to 
whittle ! What wonder the results were what they were. 
The marvel to me was that even two got their work right ! 

And yet I see quantities of such work as this in the 
school-rooms I go into. Of course, it doesn't all show up 
as plainly as this did, because the results are not as con- 
crete as in this case — are not tangible, as they were here. 
But the work is just as bungling ; the shavings are just as 
thick. 

Indeed, it was not until I got out of the school-room, 
and began to work where I had to pay my own bills, that 
I realized how hard it is to teach so as to get results that 
will not bankrupt the teacher. But when I got into our 
mill, and put a boy to work upon a board that had cost me 
two dollars, up to the point where he took it in hand, and 



132 WALKS AND TALKS. 

then had to run the risk of his ruining it by the work he 
had to do on it, and I had to stand the loss if he did spoilit 
— why, then the thing began to take hold of me, and I 
began to study the art of teaching to some purpose. And 
to save my costly boards, and at the same time to get the 
work out of the boys, that was what gave me a test of my 
teaching ability such as I never knew anything about 
before. 

And yet, as a matter of fact, what are my paltry 
boards when compared with the timber the school teacher 
works with, five days in the week, for nine months in the 
year ! It is enough to make one shiver just to think 
about it. 

But it was a great school for me, just this working 
with boys and boards, and the experience taught me in- 
finitely more about the real art of pedagogy than I ever 
learned from all the books on that branch of science that 
I have ever read. 

For when, at the end of the month, our bookkeeper 
showed me a balance-sheet that noted a loss of dollars and 
dollars, and which loss came because of ** waste in con- 
struction in the shop " ; when I saw the cold and rigid 
figures which I could neither stare nor bluff out of coun- 
tenance, when they looked me right in the eye and said : 
" You have had so much material, out of which you should 
have produced so much out-put, whereas you have only 
succeeded in getting so much out of it, and you are 
charged with the balance " — I say, when I saw this, and 
felt it in my pocket-book^ why then the real condition of 
things took hold of me in a way that meant something. 

And I wish there were some way that poor work in 
the school-room could be brought home to the teacher in 
as potent and persuading a manner as my poor shop-work 
was rolled back upon me. I wonder if there is any such 



WHITTLING. 133 

way ? Yes, I believe there is, only it is longer in coming 
around, that is all. The chief difference is that the books 
are not promptly kept, and the balance-sheets are not 
taken off every thirty days, that is all. 

B7it the books are kept somewhere, and some day tliey will 
show up^ and we shall be forced to see what kind of shavings 
ive are whittling. 

How -diX^ you whittling, beloved ? Look at your stick, 
and do not forget that thick shavings mean waste and 
destruction and loss, and that somebody has to pay for all 
these things, sometime. 

And happy are ye, yea, thrice blessed, if you can 
fashion the children that are committed to your hands so 
that they shall fill the places that you are set to fit them 
for. 

Don't get blue about it, though it is enough to give 
one the blues, sometimes, this difference between require- 
ment and fulfilment ; but if you continue to whittle in the 
school-room, I commend to you a never-ending study of 
the art of whittling a thin shaving ! 



134 WALKS AND TALKS. 



LIGHT, AIR, HEAT AND HEALTH. 

I have been greatly impressed, as I have been in and 
out of some scores of different school-houses, in the past 
few months, with the fact that there are a great many 
badly constructed school buildings in this country; and 
because I have gleaned a good many ideas about the con- 
struction of such buildings from the many School Super- 
intendents and Boards of Education that I have met in my 
" walks " here and there, and because new school buildings 
are constantly being erected, it has occurred to me that I 
might "put together a few thoughts on this subject," as 
we used to say in our *' composition " days, that should be 
worth while. 

What I have to say is based upon experience and not 
upon theory. I shall report only what I have seen and 
know to be reliable. 

And in the first place, it seems to me that any Super- 
intendent, or School Board that has to do with the build- 
ing of a school-house ought to realize that such a building, 
once built, is something that will be used for a long time, 
and for this reason it is very important that it be madeyV^j/ 
right to start on. If it is wrong, anywhere, that wrong will 
be a constant source of annoyance, for many years. If it 
is right, in every point, it will be a blessing for genera- 
tions. 

And a school-house can be built that is right at every 
point. I make this statement deliberately, and because I 
have seen a number of such buildings in the past fc^-v 
months. That is, they seem to me to be all that is to be 
desired. They are well-ventilated, well-warmed, and 



LIGHT, AIB, HEAT AND HEALTH, 135 

well-lighted; the rooms are well-arranged, and the build- 
ings present a reasonably pleasing exterior. 

These things being present, what more is required? 

I have seen scores of school buildings that come far 
short of possessing a/l these desirable things, and some 
that had none of them; but I have seen enough that had 
them all to know that it is possible to build a school house 
that has all of them. 

And, further, I have seen enough to convince me that, 
if a school house is to be built it is not such a very diffi- 
cult thing to build it right, if only the Superintendent or 
School Board get a clear idea of what ng/it is. 

My observation teaches me that the reason why we 
have so many bad school houses is because so few of those 
who have to do with their construction are well posted on 
the details of just what they should be like. These people 
go wrong for lack of experience. 

How many of those who read what I am now writing 
have ever had to do with the building of a school house? 
Probably very few. And yet, this is a point on which 
school teachers, of all classes, ought to be well posted, 
for it is on them that school boards rely, when it comes 
to the practical matter of erecting a school building. 

These things being so, I beg to submit a few of the 
results of my observation of a large number of school 
houses, as follows: 

First, I have found that it is a good thing, when plan- 
ning to build a school building, to keep in mind the fact 
that one cannot tell how good a school house is by the 
way it looks on the otitside ; and this thing is just as true 
when the building exists only on the architect's plans as 
it is after it is finished. The old maxim is true here, as 
elsewhere, "Handsome is that handsome does." And 
while an ugly exterior is to be avoided, yet no school 



136 WALKS AND TALKS. 

house should ever be built for the reason, merely, that it 
is pretty on the outside. My candid opinion is that more 
bad school houses have been built from this one cause, of 
trying to get di pretty looking building, than from all others 
that can be named. 

Hence, in settling on a plan for a school building, the 
adoption of one plan or another should always be deter- 
mined by the inside arrangements, rather than from the 
outside appearance. 

But this is often a hard thing to do, for beauty has a 
way of its own that often lures one away from its more 
practical rival, use. But use is the party to live with, 
through the years, all the same. 

So no one ought to be deluded and waste money, and 
still not get what is really needed, by trying to get 2, pretty 
house at all hazards. Get one that looks as well as possi- 
ble for the money; but have it right inside ^ at all events. 

And to make a school house right on the inside, the 
essential points are ventilation, heat, light, and the arrange- 
ment of the rooms. 

I mention these things in the order of their import- 
ance, so far as the real value of a school house, for school 
purposes, is concerned. I am well aware, though, that it is 
not the order in which these things are ordinarily counted 
valuable by those who have built the bulk of the school 
houses in this country up to date. If I should name them 
in such order, it would be, first, the outward appearance of 
the building, and, second, the arrangement of the rooms; 
and that would cover the most of the ground, for the great 
majority of the school buildings in. this country today. 

But as the years have gone on, and as the potency of 
scientific truth has begun to be realized by the people in 
general, gradually the public has come to understand that 
the first essential to a good education is good health; and 



LIGHT, AIB, HEAT AND HEALTH. 137 

to have good health with a poorly ventilated school-room 
is next to impossible. That is why I put ventilation as a 
first requisite to a school house that is built right. 

And in this matter of ventilation there are only one 
or two things that are really essential, though people have 
blundered on it for years. It is really so simple that a 
child can understand it, so far as its practical working is 
concerned. 

To ventilate a school-room as it should be, it is only 
necessary that each room should have a separate system of 
exhaust and air supply^ both constructed o-n correct princi- 
ples, as follows: 

There should be, for each room, a separate exhaust-flue 
that can be heated, so as to insure an upward current of air 
in it; and there should also be a separate hot-air supply 
^UQ.., for each room, so arranged that its supply can be taken 
from any one of the four sides of the school building. 

As a rule, except in crowded cities, and often there, 
a school building is set in an open lot, so that the wind can 
strike each of its sides, as it blows north, south, east, or 
west; and because 'the blowing of the wind always affects 
the circulation of air in a building, this plan of taking the 
air supply from any of the four sides of the house, as the 
wind may happen to blow, must always be insisted on, to 
get good results. 

The separate exhaust-flues should each open at the 
base, or floor line, of the room they are to ventilate, and 
the hot-air supply should be delivered into the side of the 
room, a few feet above the heads of the children. 

With such a system, a perfect ventilation can be ob- 
tained, and with a proper heat supply (indirect steam 
or direct furnace heat) the house can always be kept well 
warmed, let the wind blow whichever way it will. 

In a successful system of ventilation, then, the essen- 



138 WALKS AND TALKS. 

tials are, separate and heated exhaust flues for each room 
with separate air-supply flues that can get their supply 
always from the side of the house that the wind is blow- 
ing against. Such an arrangement can be made to meet 
the demands of any building containing from two to 
twenty rooms; and it is the only one that I have ever 
seen that is perfectly satisfactory under all circumstances. 

The reason why an exhaust-flue should be heated is 
really very simple; and if provision is not made for heat- 
ing these flues they cannot be relied upon to exhaust the 
bad air from a school-room. 

I have seen several very expensive school buildings, 
in the last few months, that have failed to do what was 
expected of them in the way of ventilation, because of 
this serious error in their construction. Exhaust-flues 
had been built for each room, but they were merely cold 
air flues, with no provision for warming them, and for 
this reason they could not do the work required of them. 

Everybody knows that cold air sinks and hot air rises. 
If a flue is heated^ the air in it imist rise; and if\\. rises, 
and the flue is open into a room at the bottom, it must 
exhaust the air in that room; that is, it will do so if cor- 
responding provision is made for a supply of fresh air to 
get into the room. 

These two things must balance each other. 

The ^r^/ problem, in any system of ventilation, is to 
get the bad air out of a room, and the second problem is 
to get pure air in in its place. But with either one of these 
two things only, there is no such thing as a good ventila- 
tion. 

And yet there are hundreds of instances where there 
is to be found only one of these essentials to perfect ven- 
tilation. 

With an unheated exhaust-flue, it makes very little 



LIGHT, AIB, HEAT AND HEALTH 139 

difference what the air supply may be, since the air is 
more apt to flow down into the school-room from such a 
flue, than to be pulled out of the school-room by it. Can 
anything be plainer than this? 

Now this is the whole philosophy of thoroughly and 
perfectly ventilating a school-room. It can be done in 
this way, every time, and it is the only way in which I 
have ever seen it successfully done. There is nothing 
mysterious about it. It is perfectly simple, and it will 
give perfect results. 

It ought to be understood, also, that no room that 
depends upon the radiated heat of steam coils, or stoves, 
only, and is without a heated exhaust flue, and a fresh-air 
supply flue as well, can ever be successfully ventilated. 

This is why nearly all the offices in large city build- 
ings have no ventilation whatever. Such rooms have 
steam radiators, or stoves, and that is all. They are 
merely sweat-boxes, and nothing more. 

But with a well-ventilated and well-heated school- 
room, the possibilities of having a good school are many- 
fold advanced. Without them, a good school of healthy 
scholars is well nigh impossible. 

Given these, the next thing is the light. 

There is no need of saying much about this, for it can 
all be told in a sentence. The light in every school-room, 
should come from the left-hand side and from the rear of 
the pupils, as they sit in their seats. That is all there is 
of it. 

And yet there are hundreds of very fine looking 
school-houses, the country over, where this very simple 
and easily to be obtained requisite is not present. It is a 
simple matter, but one that should never be overlooked 
in planning a school-house. 

As to the size and arrangement of rooms, there is a 



140 WALKS AND TALKS. 

large space for variation on these points; but for the 
average room, one that will seat about fifty pupils will be 
found the most convenient. Such rooms should be ar- 
ranged in the most convenient manner for getting the 
pupils in and out of, and about the building, with the 
least possible clashing; but this is not a very difficult 
thing. I have seen less to criticise on these counts than 
any other, in the buildings I have visited. 

It is easy to get a good school-house, so far as all 
these points are concerned; but to get the ventilation, 
heat, and light right — it is a rare thing to find these what 
they should be. One will find fifty handsome and well- 
room-arranged school-houses in this country where he will 
find one that has its ventilation, heat, and light as the.se 
things ought to be. 

Another item of great importance, in any school- 
house, is its water-closet facilities and arrangements. 
Whole volumes could be written on this often tabooed 
subject. All the way from the neglected and filthy out-of- 
door closets of a country school, to the ill-ventilated water- 
flushed closets of a metropolitan school-house, the matter 
has received but a tithe of the attention that it deserves, for 
many years. But people are waking up to the matter 
now, and results that amount to something are beginning 
to appear. 

And the most successful outcome of this problem is 
the "dry closet " system, which is now being introduced 
into the large majority of all the modern-constructed 
school-houses. I cannot stop here to specify, but the es- 
sentials to success in any such system are, a large and 
separate exhaust-flue, that shall go to the top of the 
building, connecting directly with the closet at the base, 
and being heated so as to insure a draught — this, and the 
presence of sufficient heat to rapidly and perfectly evap- 



LIGHT, AIR, HEAT AND HEALTH. Ul 

orate all defecations — given these, and the problem is 
solved beyond question. 

The rooms containing these closets should be sepa- 
rated from one another, so that there can be no possible 
communication between them, and the stairs leading to 
them, from the floor above, should be in different parts of 
the building, and as far removed from each other as 
possible. 

Where there are two entrances to the school-house 
(and it is always well to have two, if possible, one for 
the boys and one for the girls), the stairs leading to the 
closets should be as near the respective entrances as pos- 
sible. This makes a perfect arrangement, and one that 
c;innot fail to give satisfaction. 

There are many minor points that might be noted, 
but these that I have set down I believe to be the essen- 
tials. The height of windows from the floor — that is, 
having them so high that pupils cannot see out of them, 
is a good point to notice; but this is found in nearly all 
modern school-houses. 

Having the upper half of the inside school-room doors 
of glass, is another good feature. Having the stairs that 
lead from the street to the school-room first floor on the 
inside of the building, is another excellent arrangement. 

But this paper is already too long; yet I find it hard 
to shorten it and say what it seems to me needs to be 
said as to the essentials of a perfectly constructed school- 
house. 

To get such a house, the testimony I have taken all 
leads to the fact that the architect who plans the building 
— its exterior appearance, arrangement ol rooms, light, 
etc., ought also to be compelled to plan for its ventilation 
and heating, substantially according to the principles 
which are noted in what I have written. 



142 WALKS AND TALKS. 

In fact, whenever an architect or a school board sets 
to work to plan a school-house, I believe he or they can 
make a success of it only by beginning where I began this 
paper, at ventilation, and making all else subsidiary to 
that ; because it is more important than anything else, 
and it can be successfully provided for only when it is 
made the basis of all subsequent arrangements. 

If school-houses can be built substantially "//^zj ^';/^ 
toy the people who pay for them will get the worth of 
their money, and the children who attend them will be 
well provided for, on the physical side, whatever comes 
or goes; and these two things are greatly to be desired 
by all parties concerned. 



IN INSTITUTE ASSEMBLED. 143 



IN INSTITUTE ASSEMBLED. 

I suppose the Lord knows why it is that the good 
and the bad are let grow side by side in this world, so 
that wherever you find one of them the other is sure to be 
close at hand; and if He would only explain this pheno- 
menon, we should then know just how it happens that 
there are county institutes, and county institutes, all the 
way from those that are "away up in G," as I heard a teacher 
say the other day, to those that are not worth "ten cents 
a gross in fifty-five cent silver," as another brother (or was 
it a sister?) remarked in my presence not long ago, when 
trying to find some term near enough the zero point to 
express his or her estimate of the value of a certain 
teacher who couldn't teach. 

But whatever the reason for all this may be, the fact 
is-, that when one walks abroad among county institutes, 
even for a single summer, he sees such exhibitions of the 
good and the bad, such combinations of the just and the 
unjust, as to make him marvel at the possibilities in the 
premises at either end of the line. 

A score of times in the last two months I have wished 
I could be a kodak, for the time being, so that I might 
snap-shot some of the institutes I have attended, and 
afterwards have the plates developed for the readers of 
this record; but, like the ghost in Hamlet, something has 
said to me that such eternal blazon must not be to the 
eyes of flesh and blood, and as all of the eyes I know of 
are constructed on that basis, I must content myself, as 
did the poor specter in the tragedy, by saying only "List ! 
List ! O List ! " 



144 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Can anybody tell me why, in a Christian country and in 
times of peace, when the thermometer is 98° in the shade, 
a quiet and law-abiding company of noncombatant and 
inoffensive young men and women, mostly from the coun- 
try, should be arranged in squads, and platoons, and 
divisions, and bastions, and breastworks, and chevaux de 
frise, or words to that effect — and to the music of the 
wry-necked fife and boisterous drum, that make day hide- 
ous in the upstairs hall of the school house, they should 
be marched about and in and out of the recitation rooms 
like the figures in a St. Peter clock, or the automatons at 
Mrs. Jarley's? 

I am sure it is right that all things should be done 
decently and in order, but when I saw such military dis- 
play as I have noted above clamped on to a very clever 
lot of young men and women, in institute assembled, the 
other day, somehow I didn't like it. I saw these same 
young folks, when the "exercises" of the day were over, 
moving about, from room to room, in a quiet, orderly, and 
natural manner; and I couldn't help wondering why they 
should not have been permitted to do the same thing — 
taught I0 do just the same thing, if need be — rather than 
have been marched about like soldiers. 

No, no ! We don't want to make soldiers of our boys 
and girls. We want to make them men and women, — just 
plain, free, and sensible men and women, — that's all; 
graceful because they are natural, and obedient to the 
divine principle to keep out of one another's way by the 
use of their own wits, rather than according to orders 
issued from "headquarters," while the band plays! 

The greatest general of recent years said, a good 
while ago, " The war is over ! " 

I wonder what has gone wrong with the first personal 
pronoun, singular number, nominative case, that it is no 



IN INSTITUTE ASSEMBLED, 145 

longer " good form " for a teacher to use it as pertaining 
to herself when talking to her class about the illustrious 
personage who is hearing the then-on recitation? And 
yet I recently heard the following from a newly-minted 
schoolma'm, freshly imported from an eastern teacher fac- 
tory, and with the tool-marks of her makers all over her, so 
that there could be no mistake about the brand, as who 
should say, " Examine the label, which bears our signature, 
and without which none can be genuine!" 

This young lady (and a very clever girl she was, too, 
after you got down through the triple plate of formality 
that her "training" had covered her over with) had a 
class of little folks that she was working, to show us "how 
to do it." And here is a part of what she did with that 
class anent the use of that least, and yet greatest of all 
words, the first personal pronoun aforesaid; 

"Now chUdren," she smilingly declaimed, "look 
right at Miss Twiddledum (herself) for Miss Twiddledum 
is going to give you an exercise that will be so cute and 
funny! Now all do just as Miss Twiddledum does. That 
is very nice. Oh, you are so smart! 

"Now see Miss Twiddledum do this! Isn't that funny? 

"Now see if you can do what Miss Twiddledum did. 
Careful now — just as Miss Twiddledum did! Oh, no, 
that is not the way Miss Twiddledum did at all! 

"Now look at Miss Twiddledum again! See how Miss 
Twiddledum does? Look sharp! Now just as Miss 
Twiddledum does! " 

And so following, for a quarter of an hour by the stolid- 
faced clock which gazed at the entire performance with- 
out either smile or frown, though it was the only counte- 
nance in the room that came so happily through the 
trying ordeal. 
10 



146 WALKS AND TALKS. 

I remember that it used to be said that President 
Andrew Johnson's printed messages and speeches looked 
like a post-and-board fence with the boards knocked off, 
so frequently did he use the word "I;" but even such 
diction seems to me preferable to the ultra " Caesar-led- 
his-army" style of this latest disciple of third-personalism. 

And yet double prices are paid for this sort of thing, 
well rubbed in, by some county institutes that I have 
seen! 

I wonder if anyone knows just what parts of the cere- 
brum and cerebellum of a six-year-old child are illumin- 
ated and made to glow with an arc light brilliancy when 
the lucid statement is made to the little him or her that 
•'the fishbone sound, followed by the little lamb sound, 
followed by grandpa's watch sound form the vocalized 
expression of the word cat!" 

It tskes three prices, and a "special importation of our 
own brand" of teachers to -get such instruction as that 
just quoted into a county institute. And yet, though it 
comes high, I have found those who have had to have it, 
and who have had it — once! Curious world we live in, 
and curious folks who live in it! 

But I wish you could have seen, at another institute, 
that motherly little woman that we all sat entranced be- 
fore, for half an hour, while she taught a second reader 
class of boys and girls how to read. 

Like Riley's "Old Fashioned Roses," "There wan't 
no style about her," and yet she held her class, and the 
fifty of us who were "observing," for thirty minutes, so 
that we all wondered where in the world the time had 
gone to. 

Tell you how she did it? Ask me to tell you how the 
sun shines, or roses bloom, or brooks flow! 

Method ? None, and all of them! 



IN INSTITUTE ASSEMBLED. 147 

How can that be? Well, it was, and would be again, 
and always will be, in the hands of a teacher who knows 
how to teach, as she did. 

That is a mystery, I grant; but it is as divine as it is 
mysterious. 

Most divine things are mysterious — that is, they are so 
to a good many people, especially the matter-of-fact, cold 
blooded, and mathematically logical people. 

This little woman was neither cold-blooded nor math- 
ematically logical. 

She loved her children (not in any gushing and dem- 
onstratively-sentimental way, but with real, honest, home- 
made mother love), and she had the tact and gumption 
to keep her children at work on a quite difficult lesson, 
for half an hour, by which time they had mastered it so 
that they could read it well, and understood what it 
meant. 

And that seems to me to be teaching! 

And for a whole roomful of country teachers to sit 
by and "observe" such work as that, seems to me to be a 
good thing. Such work makes an institute what it ought 
to be, and what, thank heaven, it sometimes is. You have 
seen the like, haven't you? Perhaps you can do such work. 
If you can, may a kind providence grant you a long life 
and good pay, for you richly deserve both. 



But there are two more general characteristics of 
county institutes that I want to speak of, that I am sure 
ought to be considerably changed from their present sta- 
tus. And the first of these is the kind of class-room work 
that is done at these teachers' meetings. 

In nearly every one of these gatherings that I have 
attended in the last two months there have been regular 
classes formed in all the branches of study in which 



148 WALKS AND TALKS. 

examination for a certificate is required, and most 
of the time is spent in refreshing the memories of the 
teachers on once-known-but-now-forgotten facts pertain- 
ing to these studies. The to-be teachers become pupils, 
and some "professor" *'coaches them for exams." as the 
college boys would say. 

All of which, or at least most of which, seems to me 
to be far short of what ought to be done at a county insti- 
tute. It should be to gain strength and skill as teachers^ 
and not to re-grub dead facts from their forgotten tombs 
in once-familiar books, that our teachers should be forced 
to come together in hot weather and work till they sweat 
like harvest hands. 

And the best way in the world that I know of to ac- 
complish such an end — the only way that I believe teach- 
ers can gain strength and skill as teachers, is to have them 
teach! And to this end I have seen two experiments tried 
this season, which, while they were neither of them all 
that might be desired or hoped for (what is there in this 
world that is all that might be desired or hoped for?), still, 
they were moves in the right direction, and were by far 
the most interesting things that I have seen, in this line, 
for years. The first experiment was as follows: 

The institute in question held a four-weeks' session, 
five days in each week — that is, it had twenty sessions. 

Each day during the session the county superintend- 
ent prepared sets of tickets, twenty tickets in each set, 
and had the members draw these tickets at random from a 
ticket-box that was passed about the room at each daily 
general session. For instance, there were twenty tickets 
marked A.; twenty more marked B., and so on, in sets of 
twenty, till there were enough tickets to give each mem- 
ber one ticket. 

By the drawing of these tickets at random from the 



IN IN^TTTIJTE ASSEMBLED. 149 

box the institute was divided into classes of about twenty 
each (of course there were some odd ones, every day, for 
the attendance was not always in multiples of twenty, but 
that cut no figure in the working of the plan), and as a 
new drawing was made each day, of course the classes thus 
formed were never twice alike! 

As soon as a drawing was made all the members 
who had drawn "A" tickets were sent to a room by them- ^ 
selves. 

Those who held "B" tickets went to another room, 
and so on, till each class was closeted by itself. 

Once by themselves, each class cast lots to determine 
who of the number should teach the class at a recitation to 
be held the following day, the remaining members to be 
pupils in the class. 

Each teacher upon whom the lot fell had the privi- 
lege of selecting the subject for, and determining the 
scope of, the coming recitation; but each one was held 
strictly responsible, by the county superintendent, for the 
conduct of his or her particular recitation, and for the out- 
come of the same. 

The recitations thus arranged for were each about 
half an hour long, and together they occupied half the 
time of the institute, daily, some two or more recitations 
being in progress at the same time; and those who were 
not members of the then reciting classes were observers of 
what was going on. 

If, as the days went on, and new classes were formed, 
and lots were cast for teachers, the lot fell upon any mem- 
ber who had once been through the ordeal, a new lot was 
cast, so that no member had to officiate twice — any how, 
not until every member had served at least once. 

Now, as I have said, this plan is not without its faults, 
and in its practical workings it ranged all the way from 



150 WALKS AND TALKS. 

the sublime to the grotesquely ridiculous, from the ex- 
ceedingly funny to the pathetic and almost tragic; but as 
a matter of fact, it did more for the young people who 
were part and parcel of it than anything I have seen done 
in an institute for many a long day. 

J And, above all things, it did this — it gave the county 
superintendent some reliable data on which to base his 
opinion as to the fitness of applicants ^o teach. In the case 
in question, the superintendent told me that he counted 
the work done by teachers in these test classes 07ie-half\w 
determining their grade as teachers, and I am sure it was 
worthy at least that much prominence. 

And I wish you could have been an "observer" at 
some of these classes! You would have seen human na- 
ture in the school-room as one rarely gets a chance to see 
it. I could write for hours, descriptions of the teachers 
and teaching that I saw in this way. 

There was the bashful girl (poor thing) who could 
hardly say her soul was her own, but who knew that her 
place for the next year, perhaps, was in the balance, and 
that it would come or go according as she failed or suc- 
ceeded in the half hour before her. And to see her rally 
all her powers, and hold her timid self well to the front by 
the sheer force of will — men have charged into cannon- 
mouths with less exercise of self-control than this girl 
exhibited! 

And there was the blase old-timer, who has for years 
been able to talk off even the strong arm of the law, and 
get a certificate anyhow, because he could use words — 
he was forced to take his innings and let us see just what 
he could ^<?. And we saw! He spent his half hour telling 
hoiv he ivoiild do it, but he did nothing. And so the super- 
intendent had the blessed privilege of, and good reason 



IN INSTITUTE ASSEMBLED. 151 

for, putting that garrulous old head in a basket, where it 
ought to have gone years ago. 

But I must not stop to tell the whole story. To use 
the vernacular, **it was better than a circus. " But it was 
sensible, and it did the work. It demonstrated whether or 
not those who claimed to be teachers could really teach 
and that is what these institutes are for (if they are not 
for that, what are they for ?), and I should like to see more 
of the same sort. It comes nearer to being /i/e, as it actu- 
ally is in the school-room, than anything else I have met 
with. 

Amongst those who were pupils for the time being 
there were all the shades of character that one finds in 
every-day school work. There were mean pupils, stupid 
pupils, contrary pupils, argumentative pupils, smart pu- 
pils, and so on, with a few really good pupils sprinkled in 
(which I think providence provides, so that we need not 
entirely \o?,^ heart) and the teacher in charge had to make 
the best of it all, just as he or she always has to do in the 
regular work of professional life. 

Suppose you try fehis plan, some time. If you do, be 
prepared to turn pale, and to suffer from sinking of the 
heart at the sights you will see. 

But you ought to see such sights! You ought to know 
what teaching, y^/j^ what teaching the children of this coun- 
try have to put up with. 

And this plan will show it to you. 

It will also show you some work that will cheer your 
heart, as well as, possibly, make you ashamed of yourself, 
as you are led to see how your very best is far exceeded 
by some quiet teacher whom you have never thought of as 
beyond the ordinary. But even such an experience is 
wholesome. 

The plan, as a whole, is a most excellent one, and the 



152 WALKS AND TALKS. 

county superintendent who devised it not only deserves 
"honorable mention," but he ought to have a "gold 
medal" from a World's Fair. 

The other plan that I spoke of is much simpler, and 
while it has " points, " yet it is not nearly as effective as 
the one I have just detailed. 

In this case the county superintendent would, every 
day, go out through the town where the institute was held 
and gather up a class of, say, half a dozen boys and girls, 
and bring them to the school-house. 

He would take these children to a room by themselves^ 
and there have them meet, in his presence only, some mem- 
ber of the institute, who, as a teacher organizing a school, 
would examine them orally, and determine what they were 
fit to do in the line of school work. Or, again, he would 
make a class of these pupils, and have his teachers, one by 
one, come in and teach it for a few minutes, as best they 
could, while he looked on. 

This plan was also somewhat crude, and when I saw 
it in operation it had only been running a day or two, so 
that, as we would say in the shop, it " ran a little rough;" 
but it was aimed the right way, and the superintendent 
writes me that it was an "eye-opener" to all parties con- 
cerned. Like the other plan, its purpose is to discover 
whether or not would-be teachers can teach, and not 
whether they remember a fevv book-noted facts, and are 
able to reproduce them on paper, without referring to the 
original documents. 

There can be no question as to whether these 
" New plans, " or the " Old ways " are the best, and I be- 
lieve it is only a matter, of time when these or similar 
ways of determining the fitness of teachers for their work 
will be generally adopted. It is a fair trial, all around. If 
you are a good teacher, you can demonstrate the fact in 



JONES'S DREAM. 153 

the presence of gods and men, if you have a chance to do 
so; and if you are a poor teacher, it is fair that your sins 
should find you out. 



JONES'S DREAM. 

It was the year of grace, 1893, and on the first day of 
the year Dennis Dugan was plodding along on horseback 
through the mud and the mist when he met, at the section 
corners, Mr. Peter Jones, a neighbor, who was mounted, 
like himself, and the two headed their horses into the same 
lane and jogged along together. 

Dugan gave Jones a ** Happy New Year " as they met, 
to which Jones replied in a low monotone, "The same to 
you," and then became silent. The splash of the horses' 
feet was the only sound heard for several rods, when 
Dugan broke out: 

" What's the matter, Jones? I never saw you look so 
tore up in my life. You're always counted the best man 
in the business for a joke; but you don't look much like it 
to-day. What's the matter? Anybody dead?" 

Jones looked up, gave a kind of grim and ghastly 
smile, and then replied: 

*'No, there ain't anybody dead, but I dreamed there 
was, that's all," and again he was silent. 

Nothing but splashing for the next eighty rods, at the 
end of which Dugan again made an attempt at conversa- 
tion: 

**You dreamed there was? Who'd you dream was?" 

" Myself," said Jones, with a wink and a sly grin from 
under his slouched hat. 



154 WALKS AND TALKS. 

"That you were?" said Dugan; and then there WdS 
silence again. 

At length Jones heaved a deep sigh, straightened 
himself in his saddle and spoke as follows: 

"Yes, I dreamed I was dead. Didn't dream much 
about the dyin' part, but the first I knew I was standin' 
afore a gate and waitin' to get in. I waited around awhile, 
and nobody seemed to care; so I stepped into a kind of 
a little office just to one side of the gate to wait. 

" It was a nice kind of a room, not very big, and I was 
goin' around it, lookin' at things, while I was waitin'; and 
first I knew I saw a big book like a ledger, set up on a 
desk, or frame like. I kind o'wondered what it was, and 
as it was right out in the room where anybody could see 
it, I went up and looked at it, and as sure as I'm a sinner, 
there stood my account ! 

"It was headed in good style, ' Peter Jones, in account, 
etc' Dr. on one side and Cr. on the other. It kind o' took 
me back a little to run onto it so sudden, but I'd been 
thinkin' about it, more or less, all the time I'd been waitin'. 

"Well, nobody'd come yet, so I got to looking over 
the account. The first statement was, 'General Business 
Account,' and I don't want to brag, but I had a pretty fair 
showing, take it all round. I was charged up with some 
things, just as I deserved to be, but in the main I confess 
I was pretty well pleased with the way the account looked. 

"Well, then came on the 'Church and Benevolent 
Society Account,' and that made a fair show, too. You 
see I've always had considerable to give, and I've liked to 
give pretty well, and so I've given a good deal one way 
and another, and it was all down, all right. 

" There was one or two charges, though, on the other 
side, that got me a little. For instance, there was, 'neg- 
lecting meetings,' and 'giving for personal benefit,' and 



JONES'S DREAM. 155 

'giving for the sake of public approval.' That got me a 
Httle, but I stood that pretty well. 

•* I went on down to the 'Widow and Orphans Ac- 
count,' which was in pretty good shape, too, and I was 
beginnin' to feel pretty good, when I struck ' School 
Director's Account ! ' and I tell you, Dugan, my heart 
struck the bottom of my boots like lead. You see I'd 
never thought about running an account with that headin' 
anyhow. But there it was, and I had to face it. 

"Well, as soon as I got my breath, I took a look at 
it. I daresn't tell you all there was there, but it just makes 
me sick now to think about it. Why, the Dr. columns ran on 
for about six pages, and here's about the way it went: 

"Item — Neglecting to keep school house in repair, 
on account of which Geo. Newcomb's little girl caught 
cold and died, and several children suffered severely. 
[See testimony of Newcomb's little girl.] 

"Item — Neglecting to stand by the teacher when 
some meddlesome people in the district tried to break up 
the school. 

"Item — Neglecting to sustain the teacher when he 
attempted to coerce a few bad, big boys who were trying 
to run the school. 

"Item — Hiring Mehitable Parker (you see she was 
my' wife's cousin, and had been spending the summer 
visitin' us), to teach the school, she being young and 
inexperienced, when Hiram Samson could have been_ 
hired in her stead, he being an experienced and accom- 
plished teacher, the change being made for the sake of 
saving five dollars a month. 

" Item — Neglecting to visit the school and personally 
inspect the work of teachers and pupils. 

"Item — Neglecting to confer with teacher and 



156 WALKS AND TALKS. 

patrons about the interests of the school, and so on. 
Here it went, page after page, all charged up. 

"Item — Neglecting to insist on uniformity of text- 
books, and so greatly crippling the school. 

"Item — Allowing family quarrels in the district to 
interfere with and weaken schools. 

" I can't give 'em all, but they made my hair stand on 
end when I read 'em." 

"Was there nothing on the other side of the ac- 
count?" put in Dugan. 

"Well, yes; clear on to the end there was just one 
item, and that was: ' Credit, by balance, for serving for 
schoDl director for nineteen years without pay, and sub- 
ject to the growls and slanders of the whole district.'" 

And the old man winked slowly with both eyes, as )ie 
looked his companion in the face. He then proceeded: 

"That let up on me a little, but even that couldn't 
make me feel just right, and I was pretty well down in the 
mouth about the business, when I heard the door open, 
and I turned around to see who had come, and it was my 
little girl, who came to tell me breakfast was ready, and 
wished me 'a happy New Year.' 

"Well, I got up, eat my breakfast, but I kept think- 
ing of my dream, and I just made up my mind that I am 
going to do what I can for the rest of my natural life to 
make a better looking record than that, when the time 
really does come that I have to face it; There's our 
school house now, with no foundation under it, half a 
dozen panes of glass out, a poor stove, cracks in the floor, 
the plastering off in three or four places, so that the wind 
blows right in; the out-houses- without roofs, and their 
sides half torn off, and I don't know what else. 

*'I am on my way now to call a meeting of the board 
to fix things up, and if they aren't better'n they are now 



FIVE OUT OF THIRTY. 157 

inside of a week, why my name ain't Peter Jones, that's 
all, and if ever I hire a teacher for any reason except 
because he's the man for the place, it'll be because I get 
fooled. Good morning." 

And at the section corner they splashed away from 
each other at a right-angle, Jones to call the board to- 
gether, and Dugan to meet me by chance, and tell me the 
story which I have related herewith. 



FIVE OUT OF THIRTY. 

I remember hearing a wise and thoughtful old actor 
once say: "Whenever the scenery of a play attracts the 
audience, and the stage carpenter becomes the star per- 
former of the company, then the drama has to suffer." 

I was in a thriving and prosperous city a few days ago, 
and while being shown about the town by one of the citi- 
zens, the new high school building of the place was pointed 
out to me. It was truly a magnificent structure and I 
could not help but admire it. I did admire it. I was glad 
to admire it. And my friend said to me: 

, " May be you would care to go inside and look about." 

I assured him that nothing would give me greater 
pleasure, and so we went in together. 

It was not in a western city that all this happened, as 
was evinced by the fact that, as soon as we were within 
the building, I noticed, upon the glass door, on the left of 
the main hall, the words " Head Master's Room. " (How 
long a habit will hang on!) 

We went into this room and there met the " Head 
Master." He was a fine looking, highly cultured gentle- 
man, and he greeted us most cordially. We said the usual 



158 WALKS AND TALKS. 

common-place things for about two minutes, and then 
our host remarked: 

" Perhaps you would like to look over the building? " 

And to this I replied: " I should be glad to do so if 
we had time; but half an hour must limit my stay here, 
and I should rather hear a class recite during the time 
than to go over the house. " 

It was the look of chagrin, not to say disgust, that 
passed over the "Head Master's" face as I said these 
words that brought to my mind the remarks of my old 
actor friend, which I have noted in the first paragraph of 
this chapter. That look seemed to say that I was a goose, 
or perhaps worse, to take good time to hear a recitation 
(which I could listen to in any school room any day), 
when I might occupy the time in going through such a 
magnificent building. 

In other words, this man had a very high opinion of 
scenery and stage carpentry. 

Of course, these are w^ell enough, and we must have 
more or less of them; but you know there are "houses 
not made with hands" that are greater than any that 
hands have ever made. And to see that possible archi- 
tect of the divine, the teacher, actually at work with the 
sacred materials that he has to deal with — to see this 
anywhere, at any time, is a sight for gods and men. 

And so we went to hear a recitation rather than to see 
the building. 

It was a class in geometry that we went to hear — just 
such a class as there are thousands of, the country over, 
in this great land of ours. It consisted of a goodly com- 
pany of boys and girls who had got along so far in the 
school course, and who were in their seats, with books in 
their hands chieiiy because it was set down in the curricu- 



FIVE OUT OF THIRTY. 159 

lum that they should do that particular thing at that par- 
ticular time. 

I think there were about thirty in the class, and of 
that number, not to exceed five did the great bulk of the 
work that was done during the forty-five minutes of the 
recitation. (I over stayed my half hour.) The rest of 
the class rubbed the rubber ends of their lead pencils 
against their teeth, for the most part, as the minutes went 
by, and, with knitted brows, tried to make out what it was 
all about, anyhow. 

And hard work they had of it, too, I assure you, for 
not one ray of light to illumine their darkened pathway 
came from the alleged luminary who sat before them 
drawing $2,500 a year salary ! 

He " heard the recitation ! " 

I wonder if a man can earn ^^2,500 a year " hearing re- 
citations? " If he can, he surely has what the great, com- 
mon, ordinary, vulgar, business people of the world (the 
people who pay the bills), would call a " soft snap. " 

And I am convinced that there are a good many 
teachers, those who draw a good deal less than $2,500 a 
year salary, who have ** soft snaps, " when judged by this 
standard. One doesn't have to be very smart, or work 
very hard, or be so very learned to be able to ask ques- 
tions, especially if the book is right before his eyes, with 
both questions and answers fairly written out. 

And Oh, the teachers who teach that way! T)o yoic 
teach that way ? If you do, ask God to forgive you, if 
you can get up courage to do so, and then either better 
your methods in the business, or try some other sort of 
work. 

Well, there those twenty-five pupils sat, and the 
teacher worked away with the five who could do some- 
thing with the lesson. These five were bright in mathe- 



160 WALKS AND TALKS. 

matics. One of them gave a very adroit and original 
demonstration of one of the theorems in the lesson; but 
it was chiefly Greek to the bulk of the class. 

And I couldn't help thinking that there was a tremen- 
dous amount of waste going on in that school room ! 
About sixteen per cent, of the class were getting some- 
thing out of the work undertaken, and the rest '* weren't 
ill it," to use the vernacular. 

Now our engineer tells me that he can utilize about 
thirty per cent, of the energy that is stored up in the coal 
by burning it under our boiler. That is a good deal bet- 
ter than that teacher was doing with that class, and our 
engineer hasn't been to college either! 

• And it does seem as though we ought to do as well 
with boys and girls in the schoolroom as one can do with 
the coal under a boiler, doesn't it? 

So I got to thinking what was the matter with this 
class, and here is a part of what I thought: 

In the first place, the teacher was to blame. He has 
a false and thoroughly bad idea of what an education con- 
sists of. He believes it to be, in the main, a good mem- 
ory-knowledge of books, and, believing so, that is what 
he tries to make his pupils the possessors of. All his 
methods tend in that direction. He makes his boys and 
girls memorize the book, and his part of the performance 
is simply to see if they have done that thing reasonably 
well. If they have, he marks it so; if they haven't, he 
sees to it that they stay in the same grade another year. 

Fine work that! Especially when dealing with im- 
mortal souls ! 

The next fault was with the pupils, more than one- 
half of whom ought never to have looked into a geome- 
try. God never made them to look into a geometry. They 
had no faculty or sense for that sort of work, and if they 



FIVE OUT OF THIRTY. 161 

hadn't, all the schools and teachers in Christendom could 
not give it to them ! 

You remember laughing at the foolish millionaire, 
who, when his daughter's music teacher told him that the 
girl had no capacity for learning music, responded: "D — n 
it, buy her a capacity ! " We laughed heartily over that 
story, of course we did. That father was such a fool, and 
the idea of buying a musical capacity was so thoroughly 
ridiculous! 

But how about geometry capacity? And how about 
the system that holds to the theory that each and every 
pupil must learn geometry if they are ever permitted to 
graduate in new clothes and have bouquets brought to 
them by the cart load while the audience fans itself and 
says ''wasn't it lovely?" 

But I don't want to rail, only these things make me 
almost wild when I see them — and I do see them, and 
their likes, almost every time I walk abroad and turn the 
knob of a school-room door. 

Somehow I can't help contrasting what actually is 
with what I thoroughly believe might be in these cases, 
and when I see a class of boys and girls "worked" for an 
hour, and observe that, for the great bulk of them it is 
labor in vain, I cannot help asking myself if that is really 
the best thing that can possibly be done in the way of 
educating the rising generation. Is it? 'Do you think it 
is? And if it isn't, what can we do that is better? 



11 



162 WALKS AND TALKS. 



IN AN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. 

I was once riding through a town with a friend, see- 
ing the sights, when all at once he remarked : 

" By the way, there is something that you ought to 
see — our Industrial School." 

And I replied, "Surely ! I had rather see the inside 
of that establishment than all the rest of the town." And 
so we went to see this school. 

Now I dislike to play the role of Momus, and it is 
ever so much pleasanter to say only nice things about 
people and places. But truth is greater than superficial 
politeness ; and in telling what we saw in this school I 
shall stick to the facts and hold them responsible for the 
outcome. 

The building we entered is one of the best of its kind 
in this country. It is commodious, well equipped with all 
sorts of machinery, and there were nearly two hundred 
boys working within its walls. These boys were pupils in 
the high school as well, and were doing the regular course 
there, with this work as a sort of an extra. There was no 
let-up in memory work, no matter what else was done ! 

The superintendent of the school greeted us cordially, 
and detailed a member of the senior class to show us 
around. I do not know that the guide he gave us did by 
us as he was accustomed to do by others, but here is what 
he did for us : 

He began at the bottom, and took us first to the 
boiler-room ; he showed us the boiler and furnace under- 
neath, and explained that they put the coal into the fur- 
nace, where it burned and made steam in the boiler ! He 



IN AN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. 163 

called our attention to the name of the firm that made the 
boiler, and said that it was the best firm of the kind in 
this country. 

Then he showed us the engine, where the steam went 
when it left the boiler — the engine that made all the 
wheels in the shop " go 'round." Then he took us to the 
door of a large ground-floor room and let us look in, while 
he said : " This is the blacksmith shop." We could see 
boys hammering in rows in the distance. 

Again, as we stood before another open cioor, our 
guide explained : " This is the carpenter shop," and we 
saw boys shoving planes, and there were shavings on the 
floor. "This is the machine shop," he said, and it was so. 
And in this way we " went through the building." 

Finally we were brought in front of a show-case which 
contained some of the manufactured product of the estab- 
lishment. The case was filled with beautiful things, 
wonderfully made, and all made by pupils of this school. 

We admired these things. We were glad to do so, 
for they were well worthy of our admiration ; and having 
done this, we were escorted back to the office, and I sup- 
pose that it was counted that we had seen the establish- 
ment. Anyhow, our guide was dismissed, and the super- 
intendent seemed to indicate by his manner that he was 
willing to bid us good-day. 

It is a busy world we all live in, and we cannot give 
much time to strangers. 

But the man was a gentleman, and, relying on that 
fact, I ventured to ask if we might be permitted to go into 
the blacksmith's shop and watch the boys at their work. 
The request was granted, much after the manner of the 
"Head Master" in the high school referred to when 
asked if we might hear a class recite. But it was granted, 
and so we went into the blacksmith's shop. 



164 WALKS AND TALKS. 

We found there about twenty boys working with the 
ordinary tools and apparatus of such a place. The fore- 
man was moving about among them, and telling them 
what to do and how to do it ; and, as far as in him lay, 
was seeing to it that they did as they were told. He 
seemed to be a very skillful man, and a most excellent 
teacher of the art of blacksmithing. In a word, he seemed 
the very man for the place. 

We watched the boys for a few minutes, and then I 
said to the foreman : " Do you succeed in making good 
mechanics of all these young fellows ? " 

I wish you could have seen that man's face as he lis- 
tened to my question. I can tell you, though, how to get 
a fac simile of it. Go to your looking-glass and stand up 
before it, and say to your reflected self, looking the same 
squarely in the eye as you speak : *' Do you succeed in 
making good scholars out of all the boys and girls in your 
classes ? " The glass will show you how this man looked ! 

And he replied, " Oh, no ! If it is in them to learn 
blacksmithing I can help them to become good blacksmiths. 
But if it is not born in them^ all the shops and all the teachers 
in the world cannot get it iftto them! " 

And I thought — well, you know by this time, just 
what I thought. It's an old story, isn't it ? But I am 
getting to think that it is just as true as it is old. 

And then, once started, this foreman went on talking 
as follows : " No, I have some boys here who will never 
be blacksmiths. But this work is in the course, and they 
send the boys to me, and I have to do the very best I can 
with them. But it is work in vain for a good many of 
them. There is that boy at the last anvil in this row. He 
has been here longer than any other boy in the shop — 
has had what we call three terms' work at it ; and this 
morning, when I gave him that piece of iron he is work- 



IN AN INDUSTBTAL SCHOOL, 165 

ing on now, he asked me if it was wrought iron or cast 
iron ! 

I looked incredulous, but the man assured me that he 
told the truth, and I said : 

'* Is he a dull boy in other things ?" 

" Oh, no," replied the foreman. '* He is the leader of 
the high school band, and I am told he is a most excel- 
lent musician. And I guess he is," he added, "though I 
only know about that from what others say, for I know 
'nothing about music myself — never had any taste for it !" 

And I thought — 

I'm thinking yet, and I wish I could say that I had 
come to some definite conclusions as to just what ought to 
be done, in an educational way, to meet the necessities of 
these cases that I meet and that you meet, turn whichever 
way we may. Surely there must be something better than 
we are now doing. And, if there is, we must find it. 
Meantime, we will do the best we can with the old ways, 
and what we have ; but as sure as God lives, and as His 
little ones live, we will keep thinking and trying for some- 
thing better. 

I asked the foreman about the beautiful specimens of 
wrought iron work that we saw in the show-case, and 
which we were told came from his shop. 

"Oh," he said, "that was all done by a couple of 
boys that were with me last year. They were perfect 
geniuses at that sort of thing, took to it from the start as 
a duck does to water ! " 

"Then I understand that you can not get all your 
boys to do such work ? " I said. 

Look in the glass again ! 

We spent an hour longer looking about among the 
boys at work. I should like to spend an hour telling you 
what we saw, but I can not do it here. But I must say 



166 WALKS AND TALKS. 

that I was greatly impressed with the idea that, for this 
day and age, that Industrial Training School is on the 
right track. It cannot make blacksmiths out of musicians, 
but it can make ** away up " mechanics out of those who 
have any head for that sort of thing ! 

And that is what we need to-day. Our schools have 
been making preachers, and teachers, and lawyers, and 
doctors, for ages, and we are pretty well stocked up on 
those lines. And so I am glad to see some of the public 
money spent for educating our young people on new 
lines. For in this way — but I must not go further on the 
subject here and now. Why did I strike it so late in this 
chapter ? Butj/<??/ work it out, and that will do just as well 
— yes, ever so much better. 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 

When Robert Burns wrote those oft-quoted lines: 
"O, wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as ithers see us." 

the photographic camera had not been invented. If it 
had been, he might have gone around to some "studio" 
and had his picture taken, and he would then have had 
what he expressed a longing for in the above lines. 

Because, you see, a camera is only somebody else's 
eye that has the power of " fixing " the images that are 
made upon its retina till we can see, by looking at them, 
just what the pictures are like, and so, just how "others 
see us." 

I thought of this the other day when I went into a 
photograph gallery to have my picture taken. I wasn't 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 167 

in a good mood, and the first interview I had with the 
camera it told me of that fact in no ambiguous way. If 
it had been somebody else's face that the picture-man 
showed me when he brought that initial plate out I should 
have declared the mouth " looked cross enough to bite 
a tenpenny nail in two.'' I had no idea that I ever looked 
that way till the faithful camera, which could not be 
bribed for love or money, told me the truth. And when 
] found out the real facts of the case — but never mind, 
the story told thus far serves my purpose. 

I got to thinking, as I came away from the gallery, 
how characteristic of the times a camera is. It shows 
the truth of things, no matter what they maybe. Its pro- 
duct is not half-beautiful. Defects show just as much as 
perfects do. 

And when you come to think about it, that is the way 
things ought to be shown. I know some people tell us 
this is not so, but I believe they are wrong. I know that 
some artists declare that there is no art in a photograph. 
Well, perhaps there is not, as they see it; but there is 
always one thing that seems to me fully as good and as 
beautiful as art, and that is truth! 

And I wonder if that isn't the right way to look at 
things — just as they are, with no false light, no idealiza- 
tion, so far as they are then and there concerned, but right 
down to the bed-rock of the actual. 

We spent several days in the art gallery, at Chicago, 
last summer, and as I think of those pictures, great as 
they are, I cannot help wondering if, after all, they are 
the greatest that art can produce. 

I went to church last Sunday, and as I got there ten 
minutes early and was shown into a side pew where I 
co'ild half face the audience, I had an opportunity to 
stvdy the scene on my left — a small inland sea of some 



168 WALKS AND TALKS. 

five hundred faces. And I say to you now that there was 
no picture in that gallery in Chicago that, to me, came 
anywhere near equaling the pictures I saw in that church 
during the ten minutes before the choir took their seats 
and the pastor came in and the organ began to play. 

It was the first Sunday for a new preacher, who had 
just come to his fresh charge. And between little prayers 
that were said with bowed heads, or kneeling, as the peo- 
ple first came in, and odds and ends of bible-and-hymn 
readings that were filled in "while we waited," there was 
going on, all over the church, bits of gossip about the 
new preacher, and what else heaven only knows, as quaint 
bonnets and curious faces leaned towards each other and 
lips whispered into eager ears. 

And to see those faces, and those positions, and ex- 
pressions — the artist that could portray them on canvas 
would be immortalized in that one act. 

But the camera of my eye can portray them, and 
does portray their likes, everytime it is -uncapped. And 
to see its portrayal is to see things as they are and not as 
they ^2^^/^/ to be; and I believe such looking is healthy 
for the human soul. 

And by this I do not mean that I would not idealize, 
that I would take the poetry out of life; but I do mean 
that, so looking, we learn to see the ideal in the actual, 
and the poetic in that which, seen otherwise, would be 
the prosiest of prose. 

I saw a photograph of a country school the other day. 
The teachers and all the pupils were spilled out on the 
front steps of the school house, and the camera had 
gathered them all in, just as they were. It was a picture 
to look at. "The Barefoot Boy" that was done in oil 
and which sold for thousands of dollars, a few years ago, 
was never one-half so good as the picture of a lad that 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 169 

showed up in the foreground of that country-school 
group. 

There they were, an actual country school, with all 
their imperfections on their heads, and their /^rfections, 
too, thank heaven! There was nothing extenuated or 
aught set down in malice. 

I both laughed and cried as I looked at the picture, 
as I always do when I look long at any body of faces 
together. All the humor and pathos of life showed on 
'the cardboard before me. The little girl on the left was 
so tickled over the situation that she had to hold her 
hand over her mouth to keep the giggle in, and the little 
hunch-back boy on the top step stood behind a bigger 
boy before him, so that he might look as tall as any of 
them and still not have his crutches show! 

There it all was, " dpwn in black and white," and 
while color would doubtless have added to the scene, if 
all else that was there could have been preserved, yet, 
surely, no artist ever painted such a group as I stood 
looking at in that simple bit of light-writing. I grant 
that it was not ideal, but it was wonderfully real, and 
realities are what we have to deal with in this old world 
of ours, especially so far as country schools are concerned. 

And, after all, are not realities enough? Anyhow, 
are they not enough for to-day? 

I know that the real of 7ww will be stale to-morrow; 
but I am coming to think that there is a better chance for 
the best to come hereafter, if we keep our eyes pretty 
steadily on what actually is. 

More than that, I am coming to a place where I do 
not complain so much about what is, or argue so much as 
I once did about what ought to be. Somehow I am 
learning that there is a Hand behind all these things, that 
directs them; and if it is true that '* Not a sparrow falls 



170 WALKS AND TALKS. 

to the ground without our Father," I am sure that the 
rest of mankind are being pretty well looked after, even 
if I do not see just how! 

I think that the greatest lesson of all that the World's 
Fair taught those who attended it is that things are in 
pretty good shape, even as they are, the world around; 
and that the chances are many to one that God has actu- 
ally succeeded in making fully as good a world as any 
man or set of men — society, reform club, or what not — 
could have made if they could have had the fashioning of 
things from the beginning! 

And yet, from the way some of us have talked, in 
the days gone by, it would seem as though we were quite 
sure we could greatly have bettered things, if only we 
could have had our own way about them. 

I wonder if we could have done so? 

And I cannot help wondering now how much better 
we can make things in the future by our man-made and 
patent processes for speeding up the car of progress, as 
it were, or by hurrying the ark of the Lord along over a 
highway of our own making. 

I say, I can not help wondering about this. Thus, I 
take some photographs of things as they were, say forty 
years ago, and I compare them with some taken to-day, 
and I can see a wonderful difference between the two — 
between things as they were then and as they are now. 
But I am also forced to see how all these changes have 
come about far more in accordance with the ways of the 
Powers-that-be than as I supposed they would come 
about. 

Oh, these photographs, that will have things as they 
are, are great truth-tellers ! And the truth is always worth 
looking at and studying over. 

When I compare photographs of then and now, I 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 171 

compare truths, and there is something solid to tie to in 
that. There is pleasure in it of the genuine sort, and there 
is profit in it too. But when you compare ideals with 
ideals — well, think that out. 

I remember, years ago, when Mr. Horace Mann 
painted some ideal pictures about the public schools, and 
what they were going to do. I also remember some pho- 
tographs of schools of many a year gone by, and I know 
some pictures of schools as they are in "this present 
now" ; and, somehow, I get more insight into Just what 1 
ought to do as a teacher from a study of these camera pic- 
tures than I do from contemplating the perhaps more 
pleasingly artistic productions that Mr. Mann's hand gave 
coloring to, years ago. 

The study of things as they are is great — yes, I be- 
lieve it is the greatest. 

And so I keep my eyes open for pictures of things as 
they are "whene'er I take my walks abroad" ; and I see 
them, plenty of them, everywhere. They are pictures 
such as no painter can ever put on canvas, no artist can 
ever express with brush or chisel. 

What studies they are, and how I turn away from 
them, wondering ? The story that is told, and that I am 
permitted to read but a page of, and then must pass on, 
taking an everlasting interest in the denouement with me 
— an interest that is intensified because I know it can 
never be satisfied — these things are great to me, and 
growing more so, continually. 

I wonder if I have space enough here to show you a 
few pictures that I have seen in the past few days. They 
are photographs that my eyes took for me, and I look at 
them, and question, and wonder. 

It was night, and I sat beside a common " drummer " 
in the cars. He was an ordinary fellow. There are 



172 WALKS AND TALKS. 

thousands such. I had seen him sell goods during the 
day, and had thought he was a shrewd man who cared for 
business and nothing else. 

But the evening wore on, and he said to me, as we 
chatted : " I've been miserable all day. I was at home 
yesterday, Sunday. I only get home once in two weeks, 
I have a wife and two little girls at home. The youngest 
is three years old. She has been more than half sick for 
a week or ten days, and was very fretful, not to say cross, 
all day yesterday. 

" I held her a good deal of the day, but towards night 
she grew so cross and stubborn that I finally gave her a 
pretty good spanking. I didn't mean to do her wrong, 
for she was very unreasonable and bad, and I thought she 
needed what I gave her — thought it would be the best 
thing for her. 

*' Wife didn't say anything, and when the little girl 
stopped crying, she sat on my lap and went to sleep. 

" Pretty soon the clock struck six, and my train left 
at six thirty. I carried our baby into the bedroom and 
laid her on the bed. Her cheeks were flushed, and there 
was a big tear on one of them. She turned over, with a 
half sigh, and threw her arms out sleepily as I put her 
down. 

"Wife was standing by, and just as I turned away she 
put her arm around my neck and kissed me, and said: " I 
wonder if you would think it hardly fair if you should 
be spanked because you were cross after being sick a 
week!" That's what she said, and I turned away without 
a word; and, somehow, the thing has stayed with me all 
day, and ridden me like a nightmare or a hideous dream. 

"I don't know that I did wrong," he added, "but the 
thing stays with me;" and he shook himself as though he 
would be free from chains he could not break. 



PH0T0GBAPH8. 173 

The train stopped, and I got out, while he went on. 

But I have looked at that picture a great many 
times, wondering. It has a meaning that goes on and 
on. Many times it fills my eye, as I think it all over^ — 
the whole picture, the faults and virtues in it, all of them 
— and what painter ever did such work. 

I was in a telephone exchange in a small town where 
one lone girl sufficed to do all the work required. The 
girl in charge was not good-looking. On the contrary, 
^he was very plain, so plain that while I was waiting for 
her to call up a distant town for me, I fell to wondering 
if, as homely as she was, and as unsentimental in appear- 
ance, she would ever know what it was to have a lover. 

Presently she got the town I wanted, and I came to 
her desk to talk to the party at the other end of the wire. 

Now I did not mean to do what I did a second later, 
but it all came about before I knew it. 

As I came up to her desk there was a pad of writing 
paper lying on it. The girl had laid it there when she 
took my "call " in hand; and, before I realized what I was 
doing I had read from that pad, " My Dearest, Darling 
Bob!" 

To make the matter worse, as I snatched my truant 
eyes from the page I raised them straight into those of 
the girl, who that instant realized that I had seen a 
glimpse of her holy of holies. 

And what those eyes said, and how her cheeks told 
stories of love revealed! Plain as she had looked to me 
a minute before, no painted or chiseled Venus that I 
have ever seen on canvas or in marble, was so wondrously 
beautiful, or so radiantly personifi ed the goddess of 
Love, as did this common, every-day girl, as she handed 
me my ear-trumpet^ blushed till her very neck grew scar- 



174 IVALKS AND TALKS. 

let, glanced down and said *' hello" to another girl fifty 
or a hundred miles away. 

I talked a few minutes into the instrument before me, 
paid my quarter, and came away; but the picture I took 
with me, and I wonder if I have let the light strike 
through its negative upon this page so that you can get 
a glimpse of it. 

However, its likes are everywhere for those who have 
eyes to see them. 

One more, and I am done. 

It was night again — midnight. [ was waiting for a 
train, and a wise and staid old schoolmaster of sixty-five 
winters and summers, a man who had seen some forty 
years of service in the school-room, was waiting with me. 
The waiting-room was still. We were the only occupants. 
The lights were low and we talked in an undertone, our 
voices echoing in the bare apartment. Finally the old 
man said (he is a model of all the virtues, especially the 
colder ones): 

** I visited my old home in Vermont this summer^ 
went back to where I was a boy more than fifty years 
ago." 

He drew his well-brushed silk hat down over his eyes 
a trifle, and slipped down into his seat as he spoke. 

*' Things have changed a great deal from what they 
used to be," he went on. "They have a railroad now 
that goes right through the old farm where my folks used 
to live. We went whizzing by the old place the other 
day, and just before we got into the small village, where 
we used to go to trade, we passed the little old red school 
house, where I got all the schooling 1 ever had till I was 
of age. It is a small brick house, and stands just at the 
foot of a hill that runs up an easy grade, just behind it. 



PHOTOGRAPHS. 175 

perhaps fifty or seventy-five feet high. It is a sort of 
sandy hill with rocks sticking out here and there. " 

The hat came lower over his eyes which were now 
closed as he went on: 

" Right on top of this hill, back of the school house, 
there is quite a clump of large pine trees, such as grow to 
perfection in that barren soil, and in just such places as 
this hill-top. They were there forty years ago, those 
trees, and they are there to-day — don't seem to have 
changed so very much in all that time." 

The hat fell forward more and more, and a little over 
one eye. It seemed to be "cocked" just a trifle, I 
thought, as I remembered the scene. 

** I noticed those old trees as we ran by in the cars 
the other day, and it all came back to me as though it 
were but yesterday. I remembered that there used to be 
some rude benches under them, and that we children 
used to go up there noons and eat our dinners; and then 
I remembered" ( the hat fell over one eye and took upon 
itself quite a jaunty air ) " How — let me see, I must have 
been about seventeen; no, I guess I was eighteen — 
how I went out walking one clear, moonlight night in June 
with a little girl I was going with then! She was a sweet 
little thing, plump," ( the hat tipped another notch ) 
*' rosy-cheeked, black hair and eyes. I can see her now 
just as she was then. 

"We strolled down to the old school house and up 
this hill, and sat down on one of those benches. I don't 
know how long we sat there. Time isn't paid much 
attention to on such occasions. We didn't say much, but 
finally, I remember, she gave me a kiss f' 

You should have seen that hat! 

"I remember," he continued, "how timid she was 



176 WALKS AND TALKS. 

about it, as though she wanted to give it but was almost 
afraid to." 

There was a rumbling outside as the train rolled in, 
and ten minutes later we were both in our berths, rushing 
headlong into our dreams at the rate of fifty miles an 
hour. 

But that picture! 

Or, rather, the two pictures — the then and the now. 
The one, the decorous old schoolmaster, the properest of 
all proper men. A grandfather whose grandchildren have 
in their veins no trace of the- blood of '* the sweet little 
thing" who sat with him on the bench in the moonlight 
nearly fifty years ago; the other of the boy and the girl 
who sat there. Photographs both; and what artist, other 
than a camera that sees things as they are, and has power 
and principle enough to reveal all that it sees, just as it 
is, could have sufficed for those two scenes? 

Yes, I like photographs. I like life as it really is. 1 
like the truth. Who is it that says: '* I do not want the 
constellations any nearer. 1 believe they are well where 
they are, and will be well when they have moved on," or 
words to that effect? The ideal is good to dream of, but 
the real is the thing to live with. 

When you look at your schools, beloved, let your 
eyes be the cameras that shall see what is to be seen. 
Let them take pictures for you — pictures of things as 
they are, in deed and in truth, and then, when you are 
alone, look the prints over, and see what there is in them. 

You may not be able to have an " Angelus " on your 
wall, but you can have a thousand better things in your 
heart's secret chamber — pictures that shall stay with you 
here, wherever you are, and perchance adorn your " ' man- 
sions on high " on the other side. 



HALF-TONES BY THE MILLION. 177 



HALF-TONES BY THE MILLION. 

What a curious fad that is which expresses itself in 
the preference some people have, or profess to have, for 
things that are ''hand-made." There is my lady at the 
ball who spreads and swells herself with pride over a bit 
of lace which she boasts was *' made by hand " on a pin- 
cushion rather than on a loom in a factory. I know a 
gentleman, too, who wears a watch-chain whose links he 
tells me are "hand-hammered." It is so heavy, to be 
sure, that it breaks all the button-holes out of his vests, 
but it is '* hand-made, '' and that atones for all its clum- 
siness. 

These are two instances that might be made two hun- 
dred or two thousand, but they are enough for my 
purpose, since they illustrate what I have in mind. 

I have been thinking about this peculiar phase of hu- 
man nature for a day or two, and trying to account for it. 
And here is what has come to me. I think it is a rather 
pronounced out-cropping of ultra-individualism, which 
borders pretty closely on the confines of absolute selfish- 
ness. It is a sort of mania for owning something that no 
one else possesses or can possess.^ 

Perhaps it arises from the fact that no two of us are 
alike, and so we, as it were, naturally*prefer that our be- 
longings should smack of ourselves. But, if even this is 
the source of the characteristic, and so may, in a measure, 
be good, yet I am certain that it is a quality that can very 
easily be carried too far, and that very soon reaches the 
region of selfishness, pure and simple. 
12 



178 WALKS AND TALKS. 

And selfishness, pure and simple, is the very thing 
that this age seems set to overcome. The vital breath of 
this era is democracy; and this, in its essential principle, 
is the very antipode of selfishness. It is everything for 
everybody — not everything alike, forsooth, but enough of 
every good thing to go around. It is not what I can have 
alone by myself, but what everybody can share with me. 
This is the kernel of Christianity, the soul of the brother- 
hood of mankind. 

I thought about this the other day when I went into a 
modern engraver's establishment and saw the artists there 
at work upon some " half-tone" plates for reproducing, to 
the very slightest detail, several great works of art that 
have for years been the sole possessions of certain indi- 
viduals or societies. It is a wonderful process. There is 
very little "hand-work " about it. The sunlight is the 
artist and it does such work as no human hand can ever 
rival. 

It is the photograph business again, only this time 
for the masses, the millions. It makes the world famihar 
with the faces of those whom we are all anxious to see 
and to know about, and it is little short of a miracle how 
accurately and perfectly it does its work. 

Well, I stood and watched the process whereby a rare 
charcoal sketch, by a celebrated artist, a picture that has 
long been the sole property of a friend of mine, was vir- 
tually " cut in brass" — transferred to a plate from which 
a million duplicates c*an be made by machinery, and every 
one of them a better copy than ever could have been 
made by hand. 

And I was glad of this beyond all telling, for the pic- 
ture is one that to look upon " doeth good like a medi- 
cine, " and I am rejoiced that the multitudes can have the 



HALF-TONES BY THE MILLION, 179 

pleasure that must come even from viewing its " counter- 
feit presentment. " 

I asked the artist if he could make '^half-tones" of 
any and all pictures, old, new, and what not. *' O, yes, " 
he said, " if only the originals are well defined. The sun- 
light is no respecter of times and places and people; all 
it asks for is a fair opportunity to do its work. Meet its 
conditions and success is assured. " 

My reason for asking this question was, that I have 
in my possession a number of pictures, some old and 
some new, that I should like to have " half-toned," that I 
might share them with — well, with everybody who may 
care to look at them. 

And so, partly by way of experiment, I had an old 
pen-and-ink sketch of forty years ago put through the 
"half-tone" process, and here is the result. Possibly 
some of your school children may care to look at it with 
you. If so, I shall be doubly paid for having had it re- 
produced. So here it is, as follows: 

THANKSGIVING. 

Thanksgiving now is not just what it used to be. It 
used to have a characteristic quality, which was that on 
that day everybody went to grandpa's. Three genera- 
tions always met on that day. And there was always a 
house full, for plenty of children was the rule and not the 
exception when Thanksgiving was young. 

It always snowed just a day or two before, and the 
first grip of genuine winter came just in time to freeze up 
the piles of mince pies that were baked the week before 
Thanksgiving. The first sleigh ride of the season always 
came when we all went to grandpa's, on that great day of 
tiie year. 

Grandpa lived up in the hills, a good day's drive, and 



ISO WALKS AND TALKS. 

we always used to go up the clay before, on Wednes- 
day. We had to get an early start, and the last stars had 
not been put out for tlic day when we were off. How the 
bells jingled and the horses' feet crunched the shining 
road, and the runners squeaked over the frosty way ! 

We had to get out and walk over the covered bridge, 
because they hadn't put the snow on for the winter yet. 
But how we were tucked up when we got in again, and 
how good the warm stone felt at our feet ! 

Then, away we went, up hill and down hill. Mary's 
ears grew cold, and mother's muff — a great, big, fluffy 
muff, but ever so warm — held to them was the only thing 
that would keep them from freezing. But away, and 
away, we went ! The sun came up, and we sang, " Away, 
away, away we go. " Mother sang, father sang, and we 
all chimed in. 

That was just where the road turned and went down 
hill into the woods and across the brook that never froze 
over, it ran so fast. Goodness ! how the echoes rang ! I 
can hear them yet, though half the voices that sang on 
that morning are now still and have been for long years. 

After that the hills grew steeper and we went slower. 
Then we got hungry and had lunch — seed cakes ! 

And so the way wore on till about two o'clock, when 
we got to grandpa's. 

The old man stood, bare-headed, at the gate, the 
wind tossing his scanty hair. As we drove into the yard 
he jumped on the side of the sleigh, like a boy, and came 
piling down on top of us with a romp, as we moved up to 
the front door. Then he took us out and kissed us. How 
the whiskers pricked ! for it was Wednesday afternoon 
and he hadn't shaved since Sunday. 

Into the house to meet grandma, uncles, aunts, and 
cousins, a troop of them, and for every one a place and 



HALF-TONE HI BY THE MILLION. 181 

love without stint ! Up to the old fire-pIacc, witli its gen- 
erous blaze of hemlock and hickory — was there ever such 
cracking and snapping as used to welcome us at the old 
hearthstone ! 

We had an early supper and then went out to see 
grandpa milk. He used to put on an apron to milk in, 
and we thought that was because he was a minister, and 
so something like a woman. lie milked, making twoj 
streams beat time in the pail as if they were one, and not 
alternately, as father did, and that was a wonder. Then 
into the house again to wait till it got real dark, v/hcn we 
were to see the turkey killed. 

Thanksgiving and turkey ! Indissolubly one ! 

So, when it was real dark, we went with grandpa to 
the barn. Out through the woodshed, and the shop, and 
the carriage house, and the corn house, clear to the barn 
without going out doors ! What a line of boys and girls ! 
Fifteen of us, and the oldest not twelve — unless you count 
grandpa ! He led the van, with the lantern — the tin lan- 
tern punched full of holes that the light could shine out 
of, but the wind couldn't blow into. 

All in, and such a row of little heads, covered with 
aprons and towels and what not ! No wonder the old 
mare poked her nose over the manger and snorted. 

But hush ! The old gobbler sees us, too, and pokes 
his head out, and turns it up to one side. Walter takes 
the lantern, and grandpa steals up in advance. A breath- 
less silence, broken by a flop and a tremendous flutter, 
and the old fellow is on the floor. Then we all rush up to 
see the poor creature blink in the lantern light, and gaze 
on us in such a helpless way. But we can't help it ! 
Think what he will be to-morrow ! 

And away we go, back to the wood-house, where the 



182 WALKS AND TALKS. 

old fellow goes bravely to the block for the cause; then 
into the house to see him picked; and then to bed. 

Yes, to bed ! Three in a bed all around ! We all 
undressed down stairs, hiding, modestly, each behind his 
mother's chair, as she sat with her back half turned to 
the fireplace. 

Nightgowns all on and feet all bare, we stood before 
the fire to see who was tallest, Ophelia at the head and 
Lily at the foot — the stalk broke that winter and Lily 
died. 

Then, as we stood there, grandpa came up behind, 
and spread his hands out over us, and gathered us all into 
his arms and about his knees. The tears trembled in his 
eyes, and with stifled voice he said: "I thank thee. Oh 
Father, for all these little ones; oh, bless them, every one. 
Spare their precious lives, if it be Thy will, and help them 
to be good boys and girls, and to grow up to be good men 
and women. Amen." 

That was the prayer, never to be forgotten. How 
still we all stood for a minute after the amen was sa'd, till 
grandpa stooped over and kissed Flora. That broke the 
spell, and we all began to kiss all around. 

And such kissing ! So many kinds ! Uncle George 
had just come from the far west — St. Louis! — and had a 
great long moustache. How it tickled ! And aunt Min- 
nie's soft lips, and aunt Flora's fat lips, and grandma's 
wrinkled cheek, and, last of all, grandpa. Then, off for 
upstairs ! 

Ah, but the stairs were cold ! — had oilcloth on 'em ! 
Then into the great, high beds — feather beds and woolen 
blankets; and grandma had warmed them with the warm- 
ing-pan ! (Can anyone tell why that luxury has been for- 
gotten?) 

All snug in bed. Good-nights repeated again and 



HALF-TONES BY THE MILLION. 183 

again, and sent in packages to the folks downstairs, the 
door is shut. It is dark; Walter tells a ghost story, Wal- 
lace tells another; then, one by one, we say our prayers. 
Almon says "trespasses" instead of "debts; "but we all 
agree on ** Now I lay me.'^ Emma begins another story, 
but it's too long, and we fall asleep, one by one, till, 
finally, she yields herself, and her eyes close with her 
mouth full of words. And we dream. * * * 

Morning — Thanksgiving morning! Who shall write 
the record of the day? 

Down stairs to dress by the. fire ! Breakfast ! Such 
cakes ! And we all have coffee ! Then prayers. We all 
have bibles. All who can read, read, each in turn; and 
the little ones who cannot read, say over a verse, word by 
word, as it is read to them. And then the prayer ! Surely 
such prayers as grandpa prayed are answered. He called 
us each one by name, and asked God to bless us and help 
us to be good. None that heard that prayer will ever 
forget. 

Prayers over, there is a break for the kitchen, to see 
the turkey stuffed and put into the brick oven; to crack 
nuts, stone raisins, bring in wood, and help (?) do a hun- 
dred things. And that brick oven ! What fragrance 
came from its spacious recesses when its mouth was 
opened and disclosed, side by side, the turkey, two Indian 
puddings, and an immense chicken pie ! That was 
Thanksgiving ! 

Then, when all these were in the oven, we all made 
ready and went to church. Grandpa preached. First he 
read a psalm that had the word "thanksgiving" in it. 
Then the choir sang an anthem in which tenor, treble, alto, 
and bass, scampered after each other with the words, 
"with thanksgiv-," "with thanksgiv-," "with thanksgiv-," 
in a regular race; till, finally, when they had worn each 



184 WALKS AND TALKS. 

other out in the chase, they all came together on '^ ing," 
and then sang "amen," and retired behind the little green 
curtain that was stretched before them. 

At last it was over and we were back again for dinner. 
This was the climax. We children " waited," but that was 
nothing. We had the sitting-room all to ourselves, and 
we had no end of fun. We played " Robin." Do you know 
*' Robin ? " It is an old game. We got a short pine stick, 
half as big as your finger, and stuck one end into the fire 
till it blazed. Then one of us took it and said: " Robin's 
alive and live like to be; if he dies in my hands, you may 
sacldle-back me." 

As soon as he said this he passed the blazing stick to 
the next, who repeated the same words, and passed it on, 
and so on round. When the flame went out "Robin" 
was " dead," and the one in whose hands he died had to 
be " saddle-backed." 

Saddle-backing meant that he should be laid on his 
face on the floor, and all the chairs, and tables, and stools, 
and whatsoever in the room, should be piled on top of 
him. No wonder it seemed a short time that the older 
folks were at dinner. 

And then came our turn. The table was re-set, and 
one Indian pudding was left untouched for us. How we 
ate! The turkey and chicken-pie were so good that 
Henry ate his fill of them; and when the pudding came,, 
and the tart pie — with little scallops and rings on top — 
and mince pie, and pumpkin pie, and plum cake and nuts 
— he could eat none of them, and cried because his 
stomach was so small. 

Then grandpa came behind us, with his hands full 
of raisins, and we put our heads back and opened our 
mouths, like birds, and one by one he dropped the fat 
plums between our lips. 



HALF-TONES BY THE MILLION, 185 

And so the dinner ended. Apples and cider and nuts 
came later in the day, as we sat in a large circle around 
the old fireplace. Then, evening and games — " Pon 
honor" — and such a pile of hands on grandpa's knee! 
and such awful questions as were asked the unlucky ones! 
''Whom do you love best?" and one said Lucy Trow, 
when down in his little heart there was rebellion, because 
he knew he ought to have said Eliza Winslow, for hers 
was the image he cherished there! Ah, pure and true 
little heart, that rebelled at even a seeming denial of its 
love! 

And then a romp with grandpa! Down on his hands 
and knees (he was seventy-four) and he was our horse. 
In behind the lounge, he was a bear. How he watched 
from his den, and sprang out and caught us, poor little 
lambs, and ate us up and wanted more! Then blind- 
man's-buff, and so on, game after game, till our little eyes 
were heavy; then bed and a child's sleep. 

Morning again. Breakfast and prayers; then good- 
bye, and off for home. That was the Thanksgiving of the 
olden time. 



186 WALKS AND TALKS. 



HONORIFICABILITUDINITY. 

I have been trying my hand a little at the census 
business, or perhaps consensus would come nearer ex- 
pressing what I have been attempting to find out. 

For a long time I have been greatly interested in the 
matter of teaching reading in our public schools, and be- 
cause " the proof of the pudding is the eating, " and that 
the further fact remains that a "workman is known by his 
chips, " I have been tasting the reading puddings, so to 
speak, that our schools are now making and baking; and 
examining the chips that fly off as our teachers "hew to 
the line " in the reading classes, let what will come of it. 

And here are some of the things that I have found: 
To begin at the beginning (and let me say, right here, 
that my report will, for the most part, like all other cen- 
sus reports, merely state things as 1 found them, leaving 
other folks to form conclusions therefrom), I started out 
with the purpose of disking pn^nary teachers just two ques- 
tions, the first of these being. What method of teaching 
reading do you use ? and the second, Will you tell me 
your own private opinion about the real merits of such 
method, based on your own experience, and unbiased by 
anyone else's opinion or say-so ? 

With these two questions formulated I set out on my 
census pilgrimage, 

I had almost no trouble at all in getting prompt and 
unequivocal answers to the first of my questions. When- 
ever I propounded the same, the reply would come back 
at me as a ball comes back from the bat, and always 
straight at me. There were no " fouls " made, no ''strikes " 



HONOBIFICABILITUDINITY. 187 

called. It was a straight pitch and a square bat, every 
time. 

And in almost every case, north, south, east or west, 
in city, town, or country, I got one of two replies. Either 
my respondent would say, " I use the word-method of 
teaching, " or " I use the sentence-method." There were 
some slight variations in these replies, some teachers 
working in a personal adjective in their answers, as " I use 
Brown's word method;" or "I use Jones's sentence 
method;" but this seemed to be a small matter, so far as 
the general trend of methods was concerned. 

In one or two cases I got a reply, albeit from rather 
old-fashioned folks, "I use the alphabet method;" but 
the great bulk, at least ninety-five per cent, of the teachers 
I put the question to, answered either "word-method" or 
" sentence-method. " 

And so my census, on this first question, seems to 
have determined this fact (for I took schools at random 
in some twelve different states) that the great bulk of our 
primary teaching of reading is now done by the " word- 
method, " or the "sentence-method." I consider that 
point fairly established. I make no comments; I only 
record the fact. 

But when I propounded my second question, then 
came the rub. To return to my base ball figure of speech, 
it seemed almost impossible for me, at first, to get any- 
body to ''bat to my pitching " at all. Some would strike 
towards what I said, but would take great pains not to 
hit the real issue by so much as a "tick. " Others would 
" swipe " my interrogation clear out of bounds on a "foul, " 
and baffle all my efforts to get them to really "play 
ball. " 

But I finally got what I wanted. I am not a Mason, 
but by working the " never'll tell," secret service system 



188 WALKS AND TALKS. 

on my reluctant non-respondents, I finally began to get 
results. These results I am glad I am now able to make 
public without betraying those who reposed their confi- 
dence in me, since all the pledge I gave them (and, 
indeed, all they asked me to give them), was that, in 
anything I might hereafter say, I would not reveal the 
identity of my informant. 

Curious fact, that; that we all hesitate to give an 
\\on^^\. personal opinion unless we can run to cover under 
an in cog. ! 

Well, when I had finally found the way to get any 
replies at all to my second question, the answers came 
with a uniformity that was somewhat remarkable, to say 
the least; especially in view of the reluctance to respond, 
noted above. 

With a very few exceptions, which I can readily ac- 
count for, the replies all agreed on the following points, 
namely, that these two systems of teaching reading tend 
to make excellent vocal readers of reading matter, the 
words or sentences of which have been told to the children 
to start on; but the pupils thus taught do not read new 
matter well, and they do not spell well. 

How is it in your case, beloved ? 

The census I have detailed is neither an imagined or 
a fanciful statement. It is on the bed-rock of the actual; 
and, being so, it seems to me to be worthy of some special 
consideration. 

And what I am anxious for is that it should have the 
special consideration of the rank and file of primary 
teachers, because it is they who know more about it than 
anyone else. This may not seem so at first, but think 
about it awhile and the light will appear. 

To help out on that line a little, the line of theorist 
versus the actual doer of the thing theorized about (call 



HONOBIFICABILITUDINITY. 189 

them superintendent and teachers, if you would like to), 
let me quote from a letter that lies before me. The man 
who writes it has been a superintendent of city schools 
for many a long year, and is among the best of the lot, 
and he writes 'me thus: 

" I want to tell you of another new continent that I have dis- 
covered, pre-empted, and explored second-handed. 

'• I have been reading for the past four or five years of the won- 
derful discoveries by a few of the leading educational thinkers who 
have been studying their children, their grandchildren, etc., and I 
have been charmed, elated, almost transported at the wonderful 
facility with which these little prodigies have absorbed and reflected 
knowledge. 

" More's the pity, bloated with this information, I have gone 
systematically to work to make the life of my primary teachers an 
absolute desert of misery and dread, by requiring them to do as 
much work as was accomplished by these little prodigies of 
perfection. 

"It is quite likely that I should have gone on at this nerve- 
straining rate to the end of my superintending career had not the Good 
Father sent one of those sunbeams to gladden my life, in the shape 
of a flesh-and-blood boy. Like his father, he refused to be a prodigy, 
and I have discovered, in my efforts to find what he knows and what 
he can do, that he is many degrees removed from the perfection out- 
lined by Perez and others of his kind. 

" I think I have learned more about how much it takes to teach 
some children a few things than I could have learned from a stack 
of books high enough to enable me to see into the Promised Land. 

•' I think, also, I shall hereafter be more humane to my primary 
teachers, in fact, to all my corps of assistants, than ever before. " 

There, 1 think, that is a pretty fair setting forth of 
" Theory vs. Practice. " 

And there needs to be just such a rounding up of 
these two, every now and then, if they keep in line as 
they ought to. This theorizing business, especially when 
it takes analogical reasoning along as a partner, is apt to 
very soon become a gay deceiver, and to leave its votaries 
in all sorts of predicaments, just when they are feeling 



190 WALKS AND TALKS. 

cocksure the next step will land them in the millenium. 

And so, to come back to that cold and heartless 
census report (for such the like always are; but it is they 
that put the ultimate test to all theories), these primary 
teachers, who have honestly given me their own private 
opinions about the real merits of the present system of 
teaching children to read, have brought out some facts 
that must give all theorists about the matter something 
to think of. 

And just here will you kindly oblige me by pro- 
nouncing, instantly and at first sight, by either the word- 
or sentence-method, whichever you prefer, and without 
having anyone tell you what the word is, so that you can 
say it over after them, the following: 

Honorificabilitudinity ! 

And if you fail to fetch it on sight, the first time, I 
wish you would reflect j'lst a little as to how you will 
finally " down it. " For you will finally down it. And 
when you have done so, just stand off a little ways, so 
that you can put the act into perspective, and see how it 
was that you did it. And then you will please ask yourself 
if the methods of teaching primary reading that you are 
using in your school are enabling your pupils to "down" 
new words when they come to them, without someone's 
telling them what they are ? Just think it over, that's all. 

And that is what I got out oithat part of my census 
work. 

As I pursued my investigations in the higher grades 
I took a little different course. I kept tab on the number 
of pupils who, as they regularly read in their classes, read 
right along, easily, and in sucha way that their pronuncia- 
tion of the words indicated that they understood what it 
was all about that they were reading from their books. 
And on this count I will, if you please, report rather my 



HONOBIFICABILITUDINITY, 191 

own impression than state, numerically, the results of my 
work. 

After watching the point carefully for months, I am 
convinced that the average reading book, above the third 
reader, is much too hard for the average pupil. The 
themes are, many of them, too lofty (I guess that is the 
word), and especially the poetry is beyond the range of 
vision of the average pupil. 

And I must insist that it is the average pupil that we 
must keep in mind in all these things. Who are our 
schools for ? Sometimes I am led to think that they are 
only for the bright pupils, whom we want to fit for college! 

I wonder if it is so ? 

And in the higher books this difficulty that I have 
noted seems to grow worse. Indeed, as I think about it, 
I fear the evil (if such it be) is one of pretty long stand- 
ing. I have a dim and misty recollection about " Web- 
ster's reply to Walpole, " or " Pitt's reply to Hayne, " or 
something of that sort, that I was set to wading through 
at about eleven years of age. The exercise evidently 
made a lasting impression upon me ! 

But here is the chief point that has impressed me 
about all that I have seen or sought to see regarding the 
teaching of reading. We spend the great bulk of the 
time that we devote to such teaching in the public schools 
upon vocal work — to teach the pupil to read aloud; when 
the fact is that 7wt one per cent, of all we read after we get 
out of school will be oral readmg! 

But the art of reading well silently, " of getting the 
thought out of the words upon the page as a bee gathers 
the honey out of a flower — how much time and attention 
do we devote to that? How well do we teach our child- 
ren to read books to themselves? What plans are we 
working to that end? Is it worth while to have any 



192. WALKS AND TALKS. 

special plans to accomplish such a result? If the great 
bulk of the reading we are to do in life must be silent 
reading, is it wise to keep that fact in view when teaching 
reading in the public schools? 

These are things to think about. Not for superinten- 
dents alone, but for the rank and file — ior you in especial. 

But it is a question, how to get results out of the 
reading class that are satisfactory, all along the line. 
Children are so different about learning to read, aren't 
they? 

Why, we had a little girl five years old, at our house 
this last summer, who took Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus " 
off my library shelf and opened it at random, and read 
right down the page as " Tammas " himself might have 
done. The little button of a thing; I don't believe she 
would have weighed forty pounds, all told, and yet she 
read like an antiquary. 

She has never been to school. She isn't old enough 
to go to school. No one ever taught her to read. 

Next year she will be old enough to go to school. I 
wonder if she will be sent to the chart class, and have to 
say •* I have a cat," while she whisks the pointer across 
the blackboard where the chalk says " I have a cat! " 

I don't want to say a mean thing, or be sarcastic, but 
some of the things that I see as I go about make me 
want to say something. And the question is, what shall 
be done with this little girl when she goes to the reading 
class next year? 

I grant that her case is exceptional, wonderfully ex- 
ceptional, and that the general trend cannot be set aside 
for the entirely unique. But yet? 

On the other hand, there is my neighbor's boy, who, 
at eleven years of age bungles along at a snail's pace in 
the second reader. He, too, is exceptional. But both 



HONOBIFICABILITUDINITY. 193 

these children will be at school next year, possibly in the 
same school ( they or their similars), and what shall we 
do for them? That is the question. 

Well, if the system won't take too strict an account 
of them they will be provided for. You could care for 
them both, and keep them both growing, couldn't you, if 
you could have your way about it? I think so. 

And I wonder if that isn't the thing to do. I believe, 
too, that you can be permitted to do it if you will be as 
frank and honest with your superintendents as you have 
been with me in answering my questions. If you will tell 
them what you honestly think, as you have told me what 
you honestly think, it will help matters amazingly. It 
will do them good, it will do you good. Don't be too 
"brash," or too rash about it, but honestly, quietly, con- 
scientiously say your say, and it will have its weight to- 
ward making your school better, beyond question. Try 
it. Not too hard; but just a little, to see how it will work. 

And now you will say that I haven't told you how to 
teach reading. And I haven't. Nobody can tell you 
how. All anyone can do for you is to give you an ink- 
ling, and then you must work it out yourself. That's the 
way God has made things in this world, and it is that way 
or none. 

*' No one can grow for you — not one. No one can 
acquire for you — not one." 

All I can ask, or hope for, is that you think over my 
census, look over your own work, and see if there is any- 
thing ioY you in what I have said. And if there is I shall 
be happy. 



13 



194 WALKS AND TALKS. 



SQUEAKS AND GREASE. 

I think I have said it before, but I cannot help saying 
it again, that, when a machine squeaks, the place to put the 
grease is right where the squeak is, and 7tot all over the whole 
mill promiscuously. 

The particular reason why I repeat this oleaginous bit 
of philosophy, just here, is that I have seen so much good 
oil wasted, in the last few weeks — so many school-rooms 
and school children slobbered all over with superfluous 
grease, as it were, that I have become almost heart-sick at 
the sight. 

I wonder what a recitation is for, anyhow? It would 
sometimes seem as though its chief aim was to serve the 
double purpose of killing time and muddling pupils up — 
"knocking them out," I am almost tempted to say. 

I don't want to seem harsh or out of patience, or to 
say mean things; but as I drop into schools here and there, 
going about the country as I am now doing, I see things 
of this sort, such multitudes of them — I see such oceans 
of wasted school-grease, so to speak, stuff that not only 
does no good, but smears and litters up what would other- 
wise be clean floors and reasonably clean children, that it 
is hard to keep one's mind in a composed state. 

And all this wastage costs so much ! 

My grandmother taught me that it was wicked to 
waste, and I know that her precept is true. It is wicked to 
waste; and like all other wickedness it will tring its reward 
in time — it will result in bankruptcy some day, if some- 
thing is not done to put a stop to the waste. 

But to the point: 



SQUEAKS AND GREASE. 195 

It was a second-reader class that I saw. The pupils 
were required to write ten "commanding sentences" on 
their slates. There were some ten or twelve pupils in the 
class. They came to the front, slates in hand, the sen- 
tences all written, and the exercises proceeded as follows: 

Pupil (reading from slate) — " Shut the stove door. Commanding 
sentence. Begin with a capital and end with a period ! " 

Teacher — " Can you not make a better sentence than that?" 

P.—" I don't know." 

T. — "Would it not be more polite to say, close the stove door?" 

P. — (Going on without further remark) — " Close the stove door. 
Commanding sentence. Begin with a capital and end with a period." 
•• Shut the outside door. Commanding sentence — Begin — with — a — 
capital — and — end — with — a — period." Go to school. Commanding 
— sentence — Begin — with — a — capital — and— end — with — a — period." 
" Go to town — C — s — B — w — a — c — a — e — w — p." Get the book — C — 
S-— B — w — a — c — a — e — w— a— p — ." " Get the hat — C — s — etc." " See 
the man. C — s — etc. ' " See the hen. C — s — etc." See the pig. 
CommandingsentenceBeginwithacapitalandendwithaperiod ! " 

T. — "That will do. Mary you may go on." 

Mary — *' Get the book. Commanding sentence. Begin with a 
capital and end with a period," etc. — etc. — etc. — etc. — etc. — etc. — etc, 
— etc, — etc. — etc. — etc. — etc. — etc. ! 

A good many of them, are there not? 
That is just what I thought before the fifteen minutes 
ended that brought this jargon to a close. 

In keaven's name, what excuse can possibly be offered 
for the like of this? And I have given it just as it took 
place, only I haven't set it all down yet. 

The class, having gone through this '* exercise," was 
dismissed, each pupil handing his slate to the teacher en 
route. 

The teacher took the slates and hastily ran over each 
one, and with a pencil checked some of the errors on 
them — that is, if the child had written a "declarative 
sentence" instead of a "commanding sentence," she put 
a cross after the offending member. 



196 WALKS AND TALKS. 

That was all ! 

Then she marked the slates, transferred the marks to 
her record book, and returned the slates to the pupils 
without a word ! 

Faa/ 

And yet this woman is a member of church and so- 
ciety in good and regular standing, virtuous, and ostensi- 
bly anxious to earn her money. I really think she was 
trying hard to teach school. 

But was she teaching school? That is the question. 
Is she a teacJier at all? Look over the record of her work 
and see if you can" find any sign of teaching about it, any- 
where. (And when you get through looking over her 
record, just cast an eye over your own, please). 

1 went down and looked at the slates which had just 
been returned. The first one was the property of a little 
fellow named Eddie something. His name was at the top 
of the slate, spelled Eaddie ! Further down he had writ- 
ten the sentence, "Go to bed," which showed thus: "Go 
to bead." A little further down the list the word "fed" 
occurred, which was written " fead." 

Now it did seem to me that this teacher ought to 
have noticed the squeak there was in this boy's spelling 
machine, and then and there applied a bit of grease, right 
on that particular " ea," that will make him all the trouble 
of a very disagreeably "hot box" one of these days, if it 
is not lubricated before long. 

He had said " Commanding sentence. Begin with a 
capital and end with a period " teii times, in the class (and 
dear only knows how many times he had said it before, 
and may have to say it again before he can graduate in 
new clothes), and yet the "ea" for "e," which is evidently 
a chronically hard place in his spelling economy, goes 
squeaking along, unnoticed, day after day. 



SQUEAKS AND GBEA8K 197 

And the other slates were only partially better. There 
were squeaky places on every one of them, but not a drop 
of the oil of teaching-where-teaching-was-needed did I 
see poured on a single squeak. It was all dumped out in 
one general pool, over the whole class, for fifteen minutes, 
as pupil after pupil rattled out, "Commanding-sentence- 
Beginning-with-a-capital-and-ending-with-a-period." 

I wonder how Gabriel will enter up the record of that 
alleged recitation? Anyhow, I am sure he will write 
" Fifteen minutes of time killed deader than a door nail, 
and not a thing to show for it." He may write something 
more, but that is his affair, and not mine. To be a mur- 
derer of good time that has been bought 3,nd paid for is a 
bad enough record for any one to have to face. 

And please do not try to turn this thrust of mine 
aside by saying it is exceptional, and that not one teacher 
in a thousand does such work as this, for such is not the 
case. I cannot tell how sorry I am to be compelled to 
say this, but the truth ought to be told, and I have told the 
truth in what I have written above. 

I grant that the case I have noted is a verj/ bad one, 
and that there are few as bad; but the visitation of more 
than fifty different schools in the last month has satisfied 
me that there is very much less teaching done in our 
schools than is commonly supposed, and that there are 
very few teachers, take them as they go, who have the tact 
to teach each one of the pupils under their c2iVQ,J2cst where 
they especially 7ieed teaching. 

For instance: I saw a class of about twenty pupils 
working in proportion, a few days ago, and when I gave 
them a little simple problem, in which it happened to be 
necessary, in one operation, to divide by 8, a majority of 
the class used long division in doing the work ! 

And this did not occur in a backwoods town, either, 



198 WALKS AND TALKS. 

and it was the principal of the school who was. Aearing 
the class ! 

And the teacher said nothing to all this. When asked 
about it, he said that he never noticed how the children 
did their work ! Perhaps he is an exception, too. I hope 
he is. But there are a good many exceptions that I see, 
or else I am unfortunate in happening upon them. 

Because, when I went into a high school, last week, I 
heard a class in Latin "reciting." That is what the "ex- 
ercise" was called. 

I sat before the class for ten minutes, and during all 
that time there were only two short sentences translated, 
and only o?ie of these was well done. 

Nearly every member of the class took a hand at tue 
other sentence, but failed to get anything out of it; and i.d 
this time the teacher (?) sat at his desk. He was a man. 
and a regular college graduate. (I insist that I am njt 
bitter; I only tell the truth, just as I saw it), buthe did noth- 
ing but call on pupil after pupil to rise, blunder, and 
fail, and be marked low for the same: when the fact was 
that there was a tricky little place in the sentence, some- 
thing that the pupils had never had before, and which 
they needed just a little bit of teaching about. 

But this they did not get. They got low marks; 
and the sentence was left untranslated, with the injunction 
to the class to "look it up." 

Again, I heard a spelling class, to which twenty-five 
hard words had been given (this was in an upper grade in 
a grammar room) to learn to spell at a single lesson. 
Among the words I remember liquefy, guarantee, kiln, 
encrysted, separate, and there were twenty more of just 
about "the same degree of hardness." 

These words had been written on the board by the 
teacher the day before, and were pronounced to the pupils, 



SQUEAKS AND GREASE, 199 

who wrote them at the recitation I heard. I saw the result, 
and out of the thirty-three who wrote there were only five 
who made a perfect record, while the majority of the class 
missed from three to ten words. 

But they were all marked, and the marks recorded ! 

As to those who missed words, there was no attempt 
made to teach these pupils how to make a success out of 
failure. Indeed, there was no teaching done at all, so far 
as I can see, anywhere along the whole line of the exercise. 
It was just another case of "Go read your book" and 
*'look it up." 

The exercises over, the teacher wrote another twenty- 
five words on the board, for the next day. That was all. 
There was nothing said about the words, none of their 
hard places noted and pointed out to the pupils — not a 
particle of teaching done. 

And I could not help wishing that the teacher would 
teach a little. That he would say to the pupils, when he 
wrote "liquefy" on the board, *' Now, the hard thing 
about this word is the "e" after "qu." If you are not 
careful you will write "ify" for "efy." Or, that he had 
called attention to the fact that it is a very easy thing to 
write "sepe" for " sepa," when writing "separate." 

I believe if he had done that, or the like of that, for 
a few times — that is, if he had taught the pupils how to 
study words — how to look after, and pick out, and fix 
upon, the hard places in every word they were set to learn 
to spell — if he had done this, if he had put the grease 
where the squeak was, he wouldn't have had such a poor 
lot of spelling books as came to his desk the day I was 
there. 

And the people who hire this man to teach their chil- 
dren to spell would have got a good deal nearer the worth 



200 WALKS AND TALKS, 

of their money out of his work than they are now getting, 
if he had used some such method. 

And it is results that we must get ! 

It will not do to blame the previous teacheu* and ex- 
cuse ourselves by saying that if the pupils would study 
they could get their lessons. We must get results, any- 
how. We must teach the children to read, and to write, 
and to spell, and what not, and to do these things well. 

If they don't learn to do these readily by themselves, 
(as some children do, but as most of them do not), it is 
the business of the teacher to teach them how to do them. 

That is what a teacher is for ! 

But, as I live, I find a great many teachers in the schools 
I visit who do not have this conception of what a teacher is 
for. They seem to think that it is a teacher's business to as- 
sign lessons ; hear pupils say them over, if they can do so ; 
mark them up or down, as the case may be; keep records 
and make up grades, and for all this to draw pay. As 
Hamlet says, " It is not, and it cannot come to good." 

And now, please, do not accuse me of telling tales 
out of school, don't call me a tattle-tale, because I have 
written what I have written above. It is not a pleasant 
thing to do, to write thus. It has given me the "blues" 
so that I shall not get over them for a week, just to set all 
this down ; but I feel that I must do it. 

For, if something is not done along these lines, to make 
them somewhere near what they should be, the people who pay 
for all this are going to find it out one of these days, and have 
something to say about it that zvill be heard on the house-tops ! 

And this is a thing the teachers ought to look so 
sharply after that it should never happen. 

We must make our schools so good that people can- 
not help sending their children to them, law or no law, 



SQUEAKS AND GREASE. ' 201 

We must teach all the children so well that they shall all 
learn to the fullest extent of their several capabilities. 

That is what success in the public school means, and 
nothing short of that is worthy of the name. 

Meantime, let me call your attention to the fact that 
whatever is said in these pages is not telling tales out of 
school. It is only telling the truth in school, and that is 
surely legitimate. 

In going about among the schools, I try not to be 
hypercritical, and not to expect too much ; and a great 
deal of the work that I see is most excellent ; some of it 
the very best. Indeed, every once in a while I run up 
against something that I have been accustomed to think 
of, and to talk about as impossible, and yet I find it done, 
and done well in spite of what I may have said or 
thought. 

For instance, I have for years thought it impossible 
for one who could not sing to teach singing in school, and 
especially to teach it well. I have seen the thing tried a 
good many times, and the most dismal failure made of it. 
But less than a month ago I was in a primary school and 
saw some of the best teaching of singing that I ever wit- 
nessed, done by a teacher who can scarcely sing a note ! 
But she was a woman of resources, and she knew how to 
teach. She did something more than to tell the children 
to " Go read your book," or to '* Look it up ! " 

But what I see, day after day, impresses this thing 
upon me, namely, that there is a great amount of what 
must be truthfully called " sloppy " work now done in our 
public schools. And further, that there is too little genu- 
ine teaching done in these schools, and a vast deal too 
much hearing of recitations and of telling the pupils to 
" look that up." 

I do not mean that pupils should be told everything 



202 . WALKS AND TALKS. 

— that they should be " carried to the skies on flowery 
beds of ease," but I do mean that they should be taught. 
That is the word. 

Beloved, can you teadi ? If your pupils do not ktiow, 
can you teach them so that they ivill know f These are 
questions to think about. 

Can you tell where the squeak is in each child's 
mental mill, as you attend to its running, day after day ; 
and have you the skill to put the grease of your teaching 
right where the squeak is, when once you have found it 
out? 

If you are possessed of these qualities, you are a 
teacher blessed of God ; but if you are working in a school 
room without them, give up your place as soon as you can, 
and then, when you come to die, you can be reasonably 
happy in your mind. But otherwise ! Well, you know. 



HOUSE-CLEANING AND HISTORY. 

We have been house-cleaning at our house for the 
last few days, and as I was just home from my winter's 
tour, and was taking a few days off, with nothing to do 
but "loaf and invite my soul," Somehow or other, almost 
before I knew it, I found myself greatly interested in this 
annual festivity, which I had often heard of by the hear- 
ing of the ear but had never before really been part and 
parcel of, as it were. 

As I stood off and watched the performance in detail, 
during the first few days of the epidemic, I gradually fell 
into the spirit of the occasion, and finally volunteered to 
" make a hand " at the business for a day, just for the sake 
of the new experience, sensation or what you will. And I 
got all I bargained for, and something left over. 



HOUSE CLEANING AND HISTORY. 203 

And it is this something left over that I am going to 
write about, in what follows. 

The first thing the mistress of the house put me at, 
( for it is she who always presides on these gala occa- 
sions ) was the clearing out and regulating of a large 
store-room that was crammed full of a promiscuous lot of 
ancient lares et penates that once had had a more honor- 
able place among our household goods and gods. I had 
never looked into the collection before, and had no idea 
that we possessed such a thesaurus of back-number truck, 
such a store of antiquities — or, rather, such a heap of 
rubbish! 

To begin with, I was told to take all this stuff out of 
the room, then clean it and dust it, and return it to its 
proper place, and " regulate " it as I put it back. 

It was not regulated when the job was turned over to 
me. 

I started in on the work, got the articles all out, and 
the room "empty, swept, and garnished." I even began 
to clean and furbish up the relics that I had removed, and 
made ready to return them and regulate them. 

But it was hard work, so I sat down to rest for a 
minute, and as I rested, I reflected. 

It is a good thing to sit down and rest once in awhile, 
and while one rests to reflect. 

As I reflected, these ideas came to me: 

What is the use of keeping this miscellaneous lot of 
crippled and out-of-date stuff any longer? 

What is it good for, anyway? 

Have we ever made any use of it during the quarter 
of a century that it has been accumulating, since we 
began to keep house? 

Why should that dozen or so of three-legged or bro- 



204 WALKS AND TALKS. 

ken-backed chairs ever again be cleaned, dusted, returned, 
and regulated ? 

Why longer keep that old cord bedstead, the ends of 
whose side pieces used to screw into the tall posts with 
right-and-left-hand threads, but which same threads are 
now mostly splintered off, till they cannot be screwed 
either way, but will slip out of their old sockets and let 
the whole thing fall to pieces, even if one should ever try 
to set it up? 

And these old cracked jars, and broken-nosed pitch- 
ers, and battered stove-pipes, and empty picture frames 
with the gilt peeled off, and the whale-oil lamps, and rolls 
of wall-paper left over from various paperings of the house 
through the years — rolls laid aside because we thought 
we viight need them to patch sometime, but which never 
matched when we tried to use them, because the paper on 
the walls w^as so faded. 

( Who was it that said, long ago, '* No man putteth 
a piece of new cloth on an old garment? ") 

And the worn out clothes wringer, and the broken 
jig-saw frame, and the bag full of old dress patterns, and 
ruptured fish-nets, and umbrellas with fractured ribs and 
punctured covers, and so on to the end of the heap, — 
WJiat is the i/se^ I thought, of cleaning and dusting and 
returning and regulating all this rubbish heap? 

So I called the mistress of the house and told her 
what I had been thinking about, and we held a council, 
right then and there, with my thought as the basis of 
consideration. 

This council lasted just two minutes, at the end of 
which time I started a bonfire in the back yard, and into 
that bonfire went every one of those useless, antiquated, 
worn-out, and broken-down things, that once had a name 



HOUSE CLEANING AND HISTORY. 205 

and a useful place in our lives, but which had had their 
day, and were fit novv only for cremation. 

It was a big fire, and a hot one; and as I stood and 
watched it, it really seemed to me that those ancient and 
fragmentary wrecks actually smiled out of the flames, 
while the crackle that came to my ears from the blaze 
was like jolly laughter, as if even these inanimate things 
realized that their end had finally come and they were 
glad of it. 

There is such a thing as living too long in this world! 

And then I cleaned and dusted and carried back and 
regulated what few /we and still useful things were left 
over of the once monstrous pile. They filled one small 
corner of the room, and on the wide, ample space of the 
clean floor that was left after they were all in place, wife 
and I danced a horn-pipe in honor of the great deliver- 
ance that we had experienced, and because we had time 
to dance instead of cleaning and dusting and lugging back 
and regulating those cart-loads of rubbish. 

Besides this, we were able to dance from the fact 
that we were not worn out by the doing of a quantity of 
useless, yes, worse than useless work, handling a lot of 
dead waste truck that was of no use to us or anybody else. 

So we had a good time instead of being '^ dead tired," 
and there is space in the store-room that it is a pleasure 
to behold. We can use that space too, for things that we 
need every day, in our practice. 

Well, a few days after this episode, I dropped into a 
school-room. Whatever comes or goes, I keep dropping 
into school-rooms; somehow they have a wonderful fasci- 
nation for me. 

There was a class in history reciting — 

I wonder if I need go any further with this paper, or 
whether it would not be better to let each one of you 



206 WALKS AND TALKS. 

" sing it yourself," from here out? But I will tell the 
story. 

"Mary may begin the lesson," said the teacher of the 
history class. 

So Mary rose and said: "Surmising that an expedi- 
tion, conducted by Clinton, which had been previously 
sent from Boston, was destined to attack New York, 
Washington sent Gen. Charles Lee to protect that city. 
It happened that on the very day of Lee's arrival there, 
Clinton arrived off Sandy Hook. Thus foiled in his at- 
tempt against New York, Clinton sailed to the South, and 
was joined by Sir Peter Parker and Lord Cornwallis, with 
a fleet and troops from England, when the whole force 
proceeded against Charleston." 

"That will do, Mary," said the teacher, "George 
may go on." 

And George stood up and said: "The people of 
Charleston had made preparations against attack, by 
erecting a fort of palmetto-wood on Sullivan's Island, 
which commanded the channel leading to the town. This 
was garrisoned by five hundred men, under Col. Moultrie. 
On the morning of the twenty-eighth of June, the fleet 
approached Sullivan's Island; but, after a conflict of nine 
hours, during which Clinton was defeated in his attempt 
to reach the Island, the ships, much shattered, drew off, 
and afterwards sailed to the North." 

And so it went on for twenty minutes; the pupils, 
one after another, standing and repeating from memory, 
the details of a fight that took place more than a hundred 
years ago! 

The children had what would be called good lessons; 
that is, they had memorized some three or four pages of 
brevier type, and could say it off glibly; but I wondered 
if, when they sat down to rest and reflect, they did not 



HOUSE CLEANING AND HISTORY. 207 

think to themselves: What is the use of this old rubbish 
heap of carnage that we have labored so hard to carry 
out, and clean and dust and carry back and regulate? 
What do you think the use of it is, beloved ? 
Or do you think about it at all? 

Or do you do as was done with the stuff in our old 
lumber-room for years — just carry out, and clean, and 
dust, and carry back, and regulate, year after year, and 
never sit down to rest and reflect about it at all? 

And when the class was excused, I said to the teacher: 
" May I look at that book for a little while? " 

She said I might, so I took the history from which 
the class had been reciting, and sat down to it with my 
note book for half an hour, and read, and noted, and 
reflected. 

Here are some of the things I noted. 
In the first place, at least three-fourths of the book is 
taken up with detailed accounts of battles, fights, skir- 
mishes, massacres, slaughters, and the like! Do you 
doubt that? Pick up the first school history you come to, 
and spend a half hour with it, as I did with this one, and 
make notes, as I did; see what you find, and then reflect. 
Here are the printed questions from the foot of one 
of the pages the children recited from. 

What can you say about the expedition against New York ? 

What was done by Clinton? 

What was done by Clinton and Parker? 

How were the people of Charleston prepared? 

Give an account of the battle fought there? 

Where, meanwhile, were the British concentrating a large force? 

What troops joined Howe there? 

What is said of the Hessians? 

What move did Howe make from Staten Island? 

Give an account of the battle there? 

Give an account of the battle of White Plains? 

To what objects did Howe next turn his attention? 



208 WALKS AND TALKS. 

And so on. It runs on like this tor pages and pages, 
I would give more of it to prove my point, were it not 
that these pages are too devoted to "live matter" to have 
room for any more of this rubbish from an old lumber 
pile. 

And if this is so, if there is no room on six-cents-a- 
pound paper for such things, how about the minds of 
your children having room for the like? 

Just sit down and rest and reflect on that for awhile. 

But let me '-summarize" for a little, even if I may 
not proceed at length. School histories summarize a 
great deal. The one I made notes from ( and it is as 
good as any — they are all substantially alike ) summar- 
izes to the extent of twenty-one pages, and the author then 
makes the remark: 

"If these summaries are memorized they will do 
much towards enabling the pupil to retain, in compact 
form, the matter that is treated in a more extended man- 
ner in the body of the book." Vea, verily! 

These twenty-one pages of summaries in this book, 
contain 655 dates, with memoranda attached. 

There are also thirteen pages of '* Review Questions." 

There are 541 of these review questions, 420 of which 
are about battles, fighting, massacres, and the like. 

In addition to this, the book contains 239 subjects for 
"Topical Review," the most of which subjects have for a 
hub,around which all else revolves, some battle, fight, mas- 
sacre, general, colonel, captain or victim of some sort. I 
did not have time to count the details of this part of the 
book, for it came recess time before I got through, and 
I preferred to go and see the children play, rather than 
spend any more time numbering the dead! 

Well, what do you think about it, when you come to 
sit down and reflect? 



HOUSE CLEANING AND HISTORY. 209 

How would a bonfire do under the circumstances? 

Don't you think that several of those 655 dates ( I 
counted them every one! Don't stand up and tell me 
that I am "fighting a man of straw," and that "it is no 
such thing." I hear the like of that every now and then; 
but whatever I may have done or said heretofore, that is 
off or on, I am solid on this score; and if you are not sat- 
isfied with my count, you can make your own tally sheet 
out of any U. S. school history that you can find ) — I say, 
don't you think there are several of those 655 dates that 
could be relegated to a bonfire and cremated, body and 
hoots so far as t/ie school childreris memories are coyicerned, 
ind this with profit to everybody? 

Of course, it is all right and proper to have these 
dates and things set down in books so that we can get at 
them and refer to them if we ever have the occasion to; 
but to make the children carry them out and clean them, 
and dust them, and cart them back, and regulate them — 
is not the great bulk of all this labor in vain? 

And heaven knows there is enough live work to be 
done in this world, not to waste time on labor in vain. 
In a word, "life is too short" to warrant such a useless, 
not to say senseless, amount of labor upon that which has 
had its day, lived, died, and ought to be buried. 

It was Jesus who said, " Let the dead bury their dead." 
And, anyhow, this thing is sure, that dead things ought 
to be buried or burned. I like burning myself. 

So what about making a bonfire for the benefit of the 
listory class, when you clear out your course of study, 
he next time you undertake that job! 

When you get into that lumber-room, your course of 
tudy, and make ready to carry things out of it, and clean 
hem, and dust them, and cart them back, and regulate 
14 



210 WALKS AND TALKS. 

them, as you have to do, more or less, every season; when 
you get tired, just sit down and rest and reflect; and then, 
if you do not make a bonfire out of some of the old cord 
bed-steads and empty picture frames and flameless lamps 
and noseless pitchers and cracked jars that you find 
there, why, then — well, you may say the rest. 

And as for ancient history, I think a good share of 
that could be bonfired. Kings, Emperors, Popes, Doges, 
Consuls, Priests, Shahs, Pharoahs, and all their quarrels 
and squabblings, with the times and seasons of the same 
— what a fine blaze they would make, and it is the only 
fine thing they could make, as I count it. 

The Sunday after all this took place, I went to 
church — but no, I must draw the line there. These 
pages are not for theological criticism. But if they were ! 

Some day, when I get grown up, I am going to write 
a book on ''The use of a bon-fire in this world, all along 
the line." 

Meantime, if you get impatient for that far day to 
arrive, you can work the scheme out for yourself. It will 
give you a great deal of pleasure to do this ; and. if you 
know how, you can dance and give thanks on the clear 
spaces you will make in this mundane sphere, if you will 
only practice what you preach in your volume, "The true 
relation that exists between a rubbish pile and a bon-fire." 

But whatever you do, or do not do, in a general way, 
please do not forget your history class. If ever a big, hot 
bonfire was needed, it is right there, in the average history 
class of a common school. 

Will you not pile out a few things from that lumber 
room, and see to it that they never get back to torture 
and muddle the heads of your children again ? I believe 
you will ; and if you do, what I had left over from my 
house-cleaning this spring will have been to some purpose. 



GEOGBAPHX AND MUSIC. 211 



GEOGRAPHY AND MUSIC. 

I wonder if I can be pardoned if I strike one more 
blow on the head of the nail that I have been hammering 
at for a good while now, namely, this giving the children 
wisdom and knowledge in wholesale quantities, so to 
speak. 

I would not mention it again, only I see so much of 
it as I go about, that I know it is the worst fault, the most 
generally disseminated failing, in the schools of this 
country to-day. 

I see it everywhere I go — the children crammed with 
great blocks and wads of alleged learning, hunks and balls 
of science or language that stick in their intellectual 
throats till they are well nigh mentally strangled. 

Witness the instance of the teacher in natural phil- 
osophy that I saw before his class a couple of weeks ago, 
who disposed of the steam engine, its construction and 
working, in two lesshns ; and of the dynamos, ditto, in a 
single recitation of half an hour, and all, as set down in 
the book ! 

And yet, right across the street there was a large 
electric plant, with magnificent steam engine and dynamos; 
but not a foot did either pupils or teacher set within that 
building, and not an eye among them all was opened to 
look into the wonderful workings that were going on 
within ear-shot of them all ! 

Why, right within sight and hearing of those boys and 
girls there was interesting and profitable work enough, in 
studying the engine and dynamo, to have kept them busy 
for a month ; and yet the whole subject was disposed of 



212 WALKS AND TALKS. 

in three bookish lessons — abstractions that those young 
people will hold in memory till they can get examination 
marks on them, and then forget forever. 

I wish I could truly say that this case was exceptional, 
but it was not. I see its like in the majority of the 
schools I visit. That is the truth I am pained beyond 
measure to confess. 

Indeed^ as I look over, in retrospect, the couple of 
hundred teachers that I have seen at work in their class- 
rooms in the past three months, the thing that rises up 
and appalls me is the very small amount of teaching, 
real teaching, that I have seen done. 

These teachers hear recitatiojts, they test the children 
to see if they have memorized this, that, or the other, and, 
in the great majority of cases, that comprises the bulk of the 
work done in the school-room. 

Do you teach, or do you hear recitations ? Just ask 
yourself that question when you say your prayers to-night, 
and then be thankful or pray for forgiveness, according to 
the answer you get to your question ! 

I heard a sixth-grade class in geography the other 
day that was exceedingly typical of most of the work 
that is being done in that branch of study wherever I go. 

And, by the way, what is the matter with geography 
in our schools just now. Somehow, to use the vernacular, 
this study seems to have got a black eye, all along the 
line. 

Up in Chicago, a few days ago, the county superin- 
tendent of that great county stated, in the presence of his 
teachers there assembled, that, as a pupil, he had studied 
two geographies. One he remembered was Peter Parley's, 
and the other he was not sure of, but he rather thought it 
was Mitchell's ! 



GEOGRAPHY AND' MUSIC. 213 

Of the first book, he said that all he could call to 
mind was the two lines : 

" The earth is round and like a ball 
Seems swinging in the air." 

He could not finish the verse, but even so, he said 
that he remembered more of Peter Parley than he did of 
the other book, whatever that might have been ! 

And if you had heard the applause that followed this 
frank statement of Mr. Bright's, as the teachers who were 
evidently greatly in sympathy with him in his open con- 
fession, clapped their hands, I think you would have 
realized what those same teachers actually think of 
geography as it is regularly taught in our schools, as a 
means of developing the mind ! 

There is a wonderful significance in such a little scene 
as the foregoing, when one comes to get into the real 
meaning of it. 

But to this class : The lesson was on Florida, and the 
teacher stood at her desk zvitk her finger on the questions, as 
she read them, one by one. 

Fact! 

I see the like frequently, especially in the geography 
class. 

Teacher — " George, what is the shape of Florida ? " 

George (who is a boy of twelve, a sort of bullet- 
headed boy) — ** It's round ! " 

Teacher — " Round, George ? Think again ! " 

George — "Well, it's kinder funny lookin' ! " 

Teacher — "What do you mean by that, George ? Be 
careful now ! " 

George — "Well, it's kinder round on the bottom, 
anyhow ! " 

Teacher — " That will do, George ! Mary, what natural 
division of land is Florida?" 



214 WALKS AND TALKS. 

Mary — " I don't know what you mean." 

Teacher (evidently trying to teach) — "Why, Mary, 
we have natural relations and natural conditions; now, 
what should you think a natural division of land would 
be?" 

(I quote verbatim from notes made on the spot!) 

But Mary couldn't make it out. 

Isn't this too bad? And yet this teacher had taught 
six years, and was getting fifty dollars a month ! 

I asked the superintendent about her, and he said he 
knew very well what a poor, weak teacher she was; *' but," 
he added, "what can I do? She is a relative of two mem- 
bers of the board, who insist that she shall stay where she 
is, and it is sure death to me in my position if I try to put 
her out!" 

He -added, "I came within one of getting myself 
dropped out two years ago, when I stood up and attempted 
to get rid of a couple of weak teachers that I had then on 
my hands. They both happened to belong to the same 
church; and, to make matters worse, it wasn't the church 
that I attended, and so the cry was raised that I was 
against them because they were not religiously of my 
faith I " 

"Well," he said, "I did get them out, but it wouldn't 
be safe for me to make another similar move for a year 
or two yet, or I shall be out myself." 

And what can one say to such an argument as that? 
For my part, I am dumb. Nevertheless, I think it best to 
set the record of this fact down in these chronicles, for us 
to think about, and see what we had better do about the 
likes, as they come up now and then. 

And they will come up ! 

But there is another side to it all, and, thank God, it 
it is the biggest and brightest side, too. And this great 



GEOGRAPHY AND MUSIC. 215 

big bright side is the noble personality of the great bulk 
of the teachers I meet. They are good men and good 
women, the great mass of them; and while many of them 
teach books very poorly, still they are such " good fel- 
lows," men and women both, that the children get a great 
deal out of them in spite of everything. 

That is the consolation I get in spite of the many 
discouraging things I see. It shows up at recesses and 
noons, and when the children meet their teachers just as 
"folks," and not as "Masters" and "Ma'ams." 

And the system that brings children and men and 
women together thus, even though it has its faults, is on 
the right tracks and is bound to come to good. Though 
we ought to Uack more and better. 

And what are we going to do about geography? Poor 
old geography ! 

If any one has a word of suggestion, speak up. As 
they used to say at prayer meeting, ** there is an opening 
for prayer or remarks." Hdive you anything to say? Or, 
better, is jj/^?/r teaching of geography worth the time and 
trouble you and your pupils are giving it? If not, what 
are you going to do about it? 



I visited a school in Wisconsin, last week, and while 
going the rounds, from room to room, I chanced upon 
the music-teacher of the school, a woman who was enthu- 
siastic in her work, and who got most excellent results 
from her endeavors. 

This teacher went from room to room, teaching music 
in all grades, from the lowest to the highest ; and I was so 
much interested in what she was doing that I followed 
her from class to class, as she went about the building. 

And the thing that impressed me, in nearly all her 
classes, was the fact that almost every child in every class 



216 WALKS AND TALKS. 

sang, and that they did so with reasonable accuracy, so 
that the general effect was exceedingly pleasing. 

I asked her about this as we walked down the hall 
between the acts, questioning her as to the possibility of 
making a singer out of each and every child that came to 
school, and her answer was so sensible that it is a pleasure 
to me to quote it, as nearly as I can remember it. She 
said : 

"Well, I'll tell you; of course there are singers and 
singers, and I simply try to do the best I can with what I 
have to work with. But five years of experience has 
taught me this : if I can get hold of a child young enough, 
I can do something for him or her in the line of music. 

" Not all of them, though, for once in a while I get hold 
of a pupil that simply cannot learn to sing. But the great 
bulk of them can do something at it, and many of them a 
great deal. 

"And in the last year or two I have stumbled upon a 
way of handling my 'monotones' — that is what I call the 
pupils who, when they first try to sing, do so all on one 
pitch of voice — that has brought the most excellent re- 
sults. I really don't know that the game is worth the 
candle," she added, " but if it is worth while to try to 
make all the children sing some^ I have found a way that 
does it fairly well. 

" And this is what I do, and how my present method 
differs from the plan I used for years. 

*' When I began my work, years ago, if I got hold of 
a 'monotone' I would take such a pupil off by himself 
and work with him alone, for hours, sometimes. And 
while I labored very hard on such boys and girls, I never 
got very much out of it. 

" But now I do the very reverse of this. When I find 
such a case, I seat the pupil where he will be surrounded^ 



GEOGRAPHY AND MUSIC. 217 

on all sides, by children who naturally sing well. If you 
will pardon the expression, I Just soak him in music, and 
hold him under, till, after a while, some of it begins to 
penetrate into him ! 

"And if I can get hold of such children young enough 
— can take them just as soon as they enter school, and at 
once begin to work them on this plan, I can, in the great 
majority of originally unpromising cases, get fair results ; 
that is, I can succeed in getting them so that they can 
sing some — at least they can sing when other people are 
singing with them, and sometimes some of them get so 
that they can sing fairly well by themselves. 

"Though, as I have already said," she added, *I 
don't know that the outcome pays for all the labor it 
costs, both to the pupil and the teacher ; but still, if all 
the children must be taught to sing, I have found this 
method much the most satisfactory that I have ever tried." 

And I wonder if there are not other cases where 
pupils who are '* born short " in one line or another could 
be " soaked " in an environment of " longs " on their par- 
ticular failing, and so, by a process of the most pro- 
nounced induction, be compelled to take on at least a 
semblance of what the regular thing demands that they 
shall be possessed of ? 

It may be a pretty thin sort of coating that such 
pupils take on, but when a board, or a principal, or a cur- 
riculum, insists that these things shall be done, somehow, 
the soaking process seems to offer better chances of out- 
put than anything I have seen for a long time. 



218 WALKS AND TALKS. 



TWO AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES. 

I took a walk into Chicago a few days ago — went 
up to eat, drink, and be merry, with the Normal Club of 
the "Windy City." 

And I found the town worthy of just that name, and 
fully sustaining all the reputation it has ever had for blow 
and bluster, to say nothing of bluff. A gale was coming 
in from the northeast, that threatened to take the lake up 
bodily and set it down, en masse, on Illinois soil. But that in- 
land sea " kicked," as it were, at thus being routed out of its 
bed; and the result was that there were troublesome 
times on the surface of that generally civil piece of water. 
A score or more of vessels were driven ashore, and some 
twenty-five or thirty sailors were drowned. 

We stood and saw the men go down — some of them 
were only a little ways from the shore — down into the 
pitiless depths that swallowed them as if they were 
blocks of stone rather than men with human souls in 
their bodies. 

As I stood with the crowd of several thousands of 
my fellow-men, and looked at the spectacle, I could but 
wonder at the calmness with which we saw those brave 
fellows, out there, go down into the Valley of the Shadow 
of Death! 

There was very little said in all the vast crowd along 
the shore. The life-saving crew was at work, doing its 
best, which amounted to nothing at all; and we all stood 
there and looked on. 

A ship would come driving in, dragging her anchor, 
strike the ground, and then go to pieces. The crew clung 



TWO AFTEB-DINNEB SPEECHES. 219 

to the rigging, as best they could; but when the ship 
struck and the break-up came, everything went, and the 
men along with the rest. 

And we stood there and looked at it all, and said 
nothing, did nothing. 

What could we say? What could we do? 

But the sight stayed with me for a long, long time. 
Indeed, I can see it all now when I shut ray eyes. 

And it almost made me insane. Indeed, if I could 
not look at it ** in large," I think it would drive me frantic. 
But I am learning to believe that even wrecks at sea are 
provided for. • 

Did you ever think they were not provided for? 

Do you think it is possible that there can be anything 
in this world that is not provided for, when anything is 
provided for? 

These are things to think about. 

Well, after I had looked as long as daylight lasted, I 
went down to the Hyde Park Hotel, where the Normal 
Club was to have its re-union and banquet. And down 
there one would never have dreamed that the lake was in 
a fury, and that men were dying by the score, within a 
few blocks of where we sat, all in our good clothes, and 
smiled at each other, and said wise things as we smiled. 

There are so many things going on at once in this 
world that it is often confusing to keep track of them all, 
and to harmonize them, and account for them as all com- 
ing from the same source! 

But I am persuaded that all things do come from one 
and the same source. 

Did you think that some things in this world came 
from other than one source? 

Did you ever try to think of some things in this 
world coming from other than one source? 



220 WALKS AND TALKS. 

What do fozi know of that comes so? Take a pencil 
and write down the name of the thing that j/ou think 
comes from other than one source in this world! 

When you get the name written down, look at it a 
long time, and think what source it does come from, if 
not from the one source of all things! 

But at the banquet we had a most delightful time. 
There was no doubt about the source from which it came 
— it, and all that went with it. Question as we might 
about the source of shipwrecks, the source of the joy and 
happiness that were everywhere present at that banquet- 
table was no mystery. 

It is such a comfort to be sure of some things! 

After the eating was over, the speaking of the occa- 
sion came on, and of all that was said on that occasion, 
there were two speeches, or talks, made then and there, 
that I want to make a record of. 

The first was made by a noted professor of a noted 
university. I haven't his words in black and white before 
me, but I think they are pretty well stamped upon my 
memory, and I will try to report them, just as nearly as 
possible as he spoke them. Substantially, he said: 

** I am very glad to speak of university work, and of 
the relation that should exist between the training in the 
public schools, and the work which is subsequently to be 
done in college. 

"And I want to say that more and more the public 
schools should keep college work in mind as they arrange 
their courses of study and train their pupils. 

"We in the college can only do our work well as you 
in the public schools do your work well, and as that work 
is done with special reference to the college work which we 
have to undertake. 

"And so I am glad to see that the report of the Com- 



TWO AFTEB-DINNEB SPEECHES. 221 

mittee of Ten, on common-school curricula, has great re- 
gard for the college-work which is to follow the common- 
school work; and I am specially thankful for the work 
that a western college president has done in the line of 
getting more college-trend work into the common-school 
courses of study," etc. 

As I have said, these are not the exact words of the 
speech, but they will serve to convey, fairly, I think, the 
idea that the speaker had in mind and gave utterance to. 

Well, when this speech was ended, some one called 
on Miss Dryer; and before I try to tell what she said, I 
ought to say a word about the lady herself. 

Emeline Dryer was born some years ago, so long ago 
that I studied grammar under her a quarter of a century 
previous to the date of this writing. I have heard it 
stated, on good authority, that she was born with her eyes 
open; but be that as it may, she has always had a way of 
seeing what there was to be seen, ever since I knew her, 
and that is a good while. 

She taught in the Illinois State Normal School for a 
number of years, but about twenty- five years ago she 
gave up her position there, and went to Chicago, where 
she entered upon aJine ( I will not call it a "career;" the 
lady is not a career sort of a woman) of special mission- 
ary and charitable work. She has never said much about 
it, for she is not much given to talk; but only God knows 
what she has done. 

So Miss Dryer, who came to the club meeting for 
old times' sake, was asked to say something, and here is 
about what she said (I again quote from memory): 

" I am glad to see you all here, eating and drinking, 
and enjoying yourselves. But it is not you that I am 
anxious about as I stand here and talk to you. 

"When I left the Normal School, I stepped down in- 



222 WALKS AND TALKS. 

to what was to me an under world, a place full of people 
and conditions that I had never had any, not the slightest, 
conception of, till I got down into it and began to look 
around. 

"And I want to say to you, good folks, here to-night, 
that it is not you whom I am concerned about, nor the 
higher education of which you have been talking — those 
things do not worry me in the least; but I am anxious 
about the relations that exist between you and your likes, 
and the thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and 
thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands 
of children who, if they could see you sitting at this table 
and could hear what you are saying, would have no con- 
ception whatever of what it is all about; children by the 
cityfull, who know nothing about, and care nothing about 
a higher education, and who never can know or care about 
it, owing to the limitations and peculiarities of their na- 
tures; children who were never born to partake of a high- 
er education, and for whom such education is a closed 
book and must always remain so; and yet children who 
will grow up into men and women who can annihilate you 
and all the ranks of society that talk about, and have to 
do with, a higher education and what -goes with it — it is 
these children and the relation that the common schools hold 
toward them that I am anxious about. 

"These children can be educated, bnt 7iot on the line 
of a higher education, as that term is now interpreted! The 
question is, what are the common schools doing to educate them 
along the lines on ivhich it is possible for them to become edu- 
cated? It is only along such lines that they can ever be 
trained to become valuable members of society; and if 
they are not trained along these lines, they will beco^ne a 
plague in the body politic that will one day bring ruin to this 
7ioble land! And what I am anxious about, and want you 



TWO AFTEB-DINNEE SPEECHES. 223 

to be anxious about, so far as the public schools are con- 
cerned is, not the higher education of a few who can go 
to college, but mi education for the great hordes of the chil- 
dren who never cmi go to college, and to whom it would 
do no good, even if they could go to college! Just think 
that over when you get home! " 

That is about what she said, and then she sat down, 
and a great hush, almost the silence of awe, fell on the 
company as she took her seat. 

I have said that these two speeches made a great im- 
pression on me, and they did! 

And I would to God that they might make an im- 
pression upon you who read these lines, for they contain 
the gist of the whole matter, so far as the public schools 
are concerned, in this day and age. 

Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. 

Democracry is the watchword of these years and 
democracy .means all the people! And the democracy of 
democracies should be the public schools. 

The fathers of these schools honestly hoped, expec- 
ted, and tried to make them true democracies, but they 
did not succeed in their undertaking. The schools they 
established, while they are nominally y27r all the children 
of all the people, as a matter of fact meet the needs of 
only a small percentage of these children. 

The great bidk of the children of the commo7t people, in 
this country^ go to the common schools for only a very small 
portion of their years of school age. The reason they do not 
go longer is, that the schools are not suited to their needs! 

Can we make schools such as are suited to their 
needs, and will we do it? That is the question that the 
people of this land have got to answer. 

If we do not, or cannot answer this question, and 
tnat in the near future, the idea of popular education — 



4 If' - 

224 WALKS AND TALKS. ^ / ' i" 

an idea which has been the corner-stone of our national 
faith and hope for nearly a centur}^ — will soon come to 
be regarded as a delusive dreani, the vagary of a well- 
meaning set of men, but not practical, as a matter of fact. 
- And when such belief takes hold of any considerable 
number of the people of these states, look out! 

Walking abroad, as I have been doing for years, with 
an eye which I have tried to make single to the best in- 
terests of all the children of all the people; and having 
personally visited and inspected hundreds, not to say 
thousands, of our common schools in nearly every state 
in this Union, I find myself impressed, as I write these 
last words of the record of my wanderings, with the great 
idea that Miss Dryer so simply, yet forcibly, expressed in 
her after-dinner talk, namely, that llie public schools must 
educate all the children of all the people. 

They are not doing this now; and it is with the hope of 
helping ^^/^ to realize this fact, and to stimulate j/(7/^ to do 
something to better the situation, and help on the cause 
of making these schools what they ought to be, that I 
have said what I have said in these pages, and herewith 
send my words to you, greeting: 

Truly the Master said: "Say not to yourselves there 
are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest. But I 
say unto you, lift up your eyes to the fields, for behold 
they are already zvhite for the harvest." And if the grain 
is not gathered it will spoil! Will you "make a hand" in 
this Public School Harvest Field? 



'"''"^'^'^''^0:7^. 



